Opening his eyes, he took stock of his surroundings.
He was lying on the ground, which explained the chilly dampness spreading up his spine. Shifting his shoulders to escape a sharp object jabbing into his shoulder, he winced as agony instantly swooped down, clawing at his chest.
Still, he’d take the pain over that disturbing nightmare. Pain meant he was awake. Hell, it meant he was alive.
Time to get moving, though—the devil only knew when those bastards would regroup and descend on them again. They couldn’t afford to be caught in the open like this. With that in mind, he concentrated on his hand, willing it to move. It took far too long for the order to travel from his brain to his hand, and when it finally did register, the movement barely qualified as a flutter. At this rate, he’d celebrate his next birthday in this damn place.
“Give it time,” Zane said, as though he’d read Rawls’s mind.
Did they have the time?
“Sitrep?” The single question was all he had the energy or air for.
“Secure. We neutralized the last of the bastards.” Zane straightened and arched his back with a grunt of relief. “Wolf and Mac mopped up the chopper guards and are sitting on the bird.” He paused to shake his head, a grim shadow darkening his eyes.
Sitting on the bird . . .
The words echoed in Rawls’s head. When had his CO and Wolf left? They’d been standing there moments ago. He frowned in frustration, realizing he was mixing reality with events from the dream.
“For a moment there, it didn’t look like you’d be bugging out with us.”
“That close?” Rawls asked, the strange dream still churning through his mind. He’d died in that silvery netherworld.
“Closer than Cos got.” The grimness echoed in Zane’s voice.
As Zane stepped back, the bulk of another man drew close. Although the new arrival was partially obscured by Zane’s silhouette, a streak of moonlight clearly illuminated a bald head.
Rawls caught his breath and froze—tension hitting hard and fast. Their party didn’t include a Vin Diesel wannabe. At least not now. Not for the last thirty minutes, not since Jillian had driven a knife into Pachico’s chest in retribution for the children he’d stolen from her.
The shiny chrome dome atop the man’s head flashed silver as he turned in Rawls’s direction. A face came into focus—long cheekbones, a narrow chin, small mean eyes . . . familiar eyes. A bloody white bandage wrapped around a pale forehead.
The ground at Rawls’s back heaved. Ice crystals hardened in his gut, chilling him from the inside out.
Not possible . . . not possible . . .
His muscles rigid, he reluctantly dropped his gaze to the figure’s opaque chest, with its big, black protrusion of a knife.
The mud-brown eyes watching him widened, which was impossible since the bastard was dead.
Sweet Jesus, he’d watched him die, watched his body incinerate during an explosion that had sent flames twenty feet into the air. There was no way—absolutely no way—the man could be standing in front of him.
No. Damn it. No. This isn’t happening . . .
Rawls stared at the translucent body identical to the one in his nightmare, and his head started throbbing like a smashed finger.
Wake up, damn it. Wake up.
Pachico chuckled—an ugly sound completely devoid of humor. “Well, fuck me. Looks like you’re not gonna escape me after all.”
* * *
Chapter One
* * *
ABOARD THE ESME, anchored deep in the crystal-blue waters of Roquebrune bay, the final haunting note of a Celtic ballad lingered, echoing in the ocean-kissed air.
Eric Manheim’s cell phone vibrated twice against his hip as the note finally faded. The aborted call meant the last of his associates were on board and secreted away below. Perfect. As scheduled, the evening’s performance had concluded as the council settled in. Time to move the festivities along, off-load the guests, and get down to the real business of the night.
Claire Rendell, the reclusive Celtic singer his wife adored, offered him a small nod and placed her microphone on the piano. Inclining his head in silent appreciation, he tightened his arm around Esme’s shoulder.
“Happy anniversary, darling.” He bent to brush her satin-soft cheek with his mouth.
She tilted her face to his, her short platinum hair caressing the perfect shell of her ears, her eyes a dreamy blue and swimming with moisture. Rendell’s music always touched his wife deeply.
As the singer stepped down from the stage, applause broke out, at first just a smattering, but it quickly turned thunderous, pounding the ballroom until the sandalwood dance floor and quadruple-paned marine windows vibrated.
Esme pressed her cheek against his. “Such extravagance, darling. A private performance, plus my very own song?”
As his wife’s breath tickled his ear, Eric’s heart rate increased. The clean, fresh scent that was uniquely Esme swamped him. Instantly his breathing quickened and his body hardened. It still surprised him that the woman he’d married to cement the power, money, and holdings of their two lineages, would turn out to be the other half of his soul.
He hated usurping their anniversary celebration. But necessity overruled privacy, and Claire Rendell’s riveting and rare performance had kept ears and eyes tuned to the stage instead of the helipad at the back of the yacht, or the mysterious late arrivals.
Waving a waiter over, he snagged two crystal flutes of champagne. He handed one to Esme and then steered her into the sea of expensive jewelry, evening gowns, and tuxedos. For the next two hours they drifted through a glittering, fragrant mob of exquisitely dressed well-wishers. As they accepted countless congratulations on their first fifteen years together, or the occasional well-bred ribaldry, Eric locked down his impatience.
The men below deck weren’t going anywhere, and this camouflage above deck was key to hiding the pending session. Until recently, secrecy hadn’t been a priority. Immense wealth and power brokered a fair amount of privacy anyway, at least enough to mask the quarterly meetings. But when rumors surfaced about the alliance’s directive, and conspiracy theorists had zeroed in for closer looks, concealment had become imperative.
He’d been lucky that his turn to host the quarterly updates had fallen so close to his anniversary. What better cover for a top-secret meeting between the most powerful people on earth than a celebration with many of the most powerful people in the world in attendance?
The press cameras pointed toward the Esme wouldn’t have a clue what they were filming. And once aboard the yacht, privacy was assured. He’d spared no expense to make certain of that. From the anti-paparazzi shield, which used lasers to disrupt the recording of images, to the electronic jammers that filled curious ears with a flood of static noise, his floating mansion was preeminently secure and perfect for their agenda. Nobody would question the helicopters constantly ferrying people between the yacht and shore, not when every press rag between New York and Paris had heralded Eric and Esme’s fifteenth-anniversary spectacular as the social event of the year.
Still, by the time the final helicopter merged with the sky, ferrying the last of their staff to the glittering Monte Carlo mainland for the remainder of the evening, Eric was ready to cast off the trappings of the camouflage and get down to business. Turning from the window facing the helipad, he lifted Esme’s slender wrist to his lips.
“It’s unfortunate our anniversary got caught in these”—he glanced around the empty stateroom to make sure the two remaining staff members—the captain and cook—had left them to their privacy as instructed—“business dealings.”
“Ah well, it couldn’t be helped, darling.” She offered a tired smile. “Try not to let them keep you too long.”
Eric drew back in surprise. “You won’t be joining us?”
“Not this time.” She lifted her foot and gingerly eased off a glittering red sandal. “All those rubies and diamonds might sparkle like a Christma
s tree on the dance floor, but they’re hell on the feet.” She set her bare foot down and lifted the opposite foot, slipping that shoe off as well. “Go to your meeting. I’m going to take a nice long soak in the tub.”
With one last fatigued smile she walked away, idly swinging her glittering, bejeweled shoes.
Once she’d disappeared from view, he stepped behind the ebony bar and pressed a button next to the enclosed liquor case. A narrow panel housing a button and a lever opened. The button activated a sixty-inch retractable television hidden within the bar.
He pulled the lever instead, twisting it to the right. A distinct metallic snick sounded. With a mechanical purr, the shelf slid to the right, exposing a narrow doorway and a carpeted ramp descending downward. The door closed behind him as he stepped inside. At the bottom of the ramp stood a well-lit room. There were no windows, instead three crystal chandeliers cast bright white light from corner to corner and bathed the sandalwood walls with a wet sheen.
Seven men, their attire ranging from designer jeans to designer suits, lounged in leather executive chairs around a huge, ornately carved ebony table. While their clothing, age, and physical appearance ran the gamut, each had one characteristic in common. They wielded an aura of authority with the same casualness they wore their clothes. A round of hails broke out as he stepped into the room, and the door at the bottom of the ramp slid shut and locked behind him.
“Manheim.”
“About damn time.”
“Bloody hell, Manheim, it’s been hours.”
“Manheim.”
Eric nodded or shrugged in response as he skirted the breadth of the imposing table. The piece’s legs were carved to resemble a Siberian tiger’s limbs—complete with paws for feet. The dark sheen of the ebony wood shimmered with satin gloss against the Persian Vase rug below it and served as a physical reminder of the critical role he and his associates played in earth’s future.
Ebony trees, and Siberian tigers . . . two of the most endangered species in the world, both protected, yet constantly available on the black market.
“I trust there were no issues boarding the Esme?” Eric asked as he slipped behind a compact bar tucked into the corner.
The staff had been occupied in the ballroom, at the opposite end of the vessel, when the helicopter had landed, and the chopper pilot had returned to Monte Carlo once his passengers disembarked. There’d been nobody to witness James Link access the secret passage from the main stateroom and lead the council belowdecks.
A chorus of negative replies circled the table before the men returned to their previous conversations. Listening to the discussion of thoroughbred racing, or the current crop of award-winning roses, one would never guess that the collective assets of the eight men in the room rivaled the combined resources of the United States, Great Britain, and most of Europe—or that the council controlled virtually every financial institution in existence, along with the bulk of the energy, pharmaceutical, and agricultural corporations.
He removed a bucket of ice from the minifreezer and grabbed a pair of tongs.
“Gentlemen, the bar is open.”
He mixed the requested drinks, passed them out, then dropped a couple of ice cubes into a crystal tumbler, filled it with water, and carried it to the head of the table.
He was a big believer in a clear head, untouched by alcohol, when conducting business. However, it never hurt to mellow one’s competition.
While the men chatting around his table weren’t exactly adversaries, they weren’t exactly friends either. They were simply men—dangerous ones—who shared a particular agenda, bought and sold lives with regularity, and wielded the kind of power that could gut the most prosperous countries and wrench them to their knees.
He couldn’t afford to trust any of them.
“You’ve gone soft, Manheim,” David Coulson announced in his habitually harsh tone that turned even a joke into a clipped accusation. He held his Waterford tumbler up to the light and glared at the amethyst ring circling the top half of the glass as though it personally affronted him. “You’ve turned sissy on us.”
Eric smiled benignly, not bothering to dig deeper into the comment for a hidden indictment. Knowing Coulson, there was bound to be one. “A gift from Esme. She appreciates a more contemporary touch.”
“Esme isn’t joining us?” Samuel Proctor asked. At the shake of Eric’s head, he reached beneath his jacket and liberated a thick cylinder of tightly rolled tobacco.
While the council was sensitive to Esme’s distaste for cigars, the instant she failed to show for a meeting, the stogies came out. Eric accepted the Gurkha Black that Proctor handed him and lifted it to his nose, breathing in the musty fermented aroma with pure appreciation. Gurkhas were one of the rarest and most expensive cigars available, and worth every pound paid for them. There were few things he missed since marrying Esme, but Gurkhas were one of them. Reluctantly he passed the cigar to James Link, on his right.
“Right on then, Manheim. What of those SEAL chaps and Dr. Ansell? Where do we stand there?” Giovanni asked, his English as clipped and perfect as the royal family, even though his native language was Italian.
It spoke to their concern that the first topic to hit the table revolved around the mess Mackenzie and his men had stirred up.
“No sign of them, but their faces are on every television and newspaper in the country. Someone is bound to recognize them and turn them in for the reward,” Eric said. He took a sip of ice water and shrugged. “We wait and move when we’re sure the intel is solid.”
From the frowns circling the table, his associates were no happier with that plan of action than he was. But then, he had no intention of waiting for random recognition to pin those bastards down.
“Mackenzie and his boys obviously have help,” Link said, staring into the amber depths of his crystal tumbler as his long fingers slowly rotated the glass. “What of the property in the Nevadas? Did you track down an owner?”
“The owner died in 1972,” Eric said. “No next of kin. No other property listed under his name.”
A moment of tense silence touched the table as the council digested that news.
“An alias?” Proctor asked, fishing a platinum cigar guillotine out of his breast pocket and clipping the tip off the Gurkha. “Mackenzie, or one of his boys? Maybe the Winchester gal?”
“Maybe,” Eric said after a lengthy pause. But his gut was telling him no. There was a third party involved. A well-heeled third party. “The best chance we have of locating our adversaries is through Amy Chastain—John Chastain’s widow. All evidence points to close ties between Amy and her family. At some point she’ll seek out her children. When she does, she’ll lead us back to Mackenzie.”
“You’re assuming she’s with those chaps.” Proctor lifted a gold cigarette lighter and let the flame sear the end of the stogie. After a few seconds he lifted the tapered end to his mouth and drew deeply.
“She was on the lab footage,” Eric said, dragging the thick, musty scent of perfectly cured tobacco into his lungs. “She hasn’t been accounted for since. She’s with them.”
“You’ve tagged her boys?” Coulson’s harsh voice sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Her kids have been injected, and the data stream is live,” Eric said after a quick glance at James Link for confirmation. The tracking technology was Link’s baby. “Thanks to Agent Clay Purcell, the woman’s brother.” Or stepbrother, as Purcell insisted.
Eric wasn’t sure what was driving the fed’s betrayal. The pair had been raised as brother and sister since prep school, yet the man had been instrumental in his sister’s kidnapping and rape as well as his brother-in-law’s murder. There was obviously some dark motivation behind Purcell’s actions, but whatever the man’s incentive, he’d made tagging the boys relatively easy.
With luck, the technology would work as well on Amy Chastain’s children as it had on Robert Biesel, their late, unlamented team leader. Mackenzie had no c
lue that by capturing and dragging Robert back with them, they’d exposed their safe house. The tracking device embedded in Biesel’s cells had given Eric an exact location. Too bad nobody had been in the damn house when the antitank missile had landed.
“We can’t assume that Chastain’s widow will retrieve her kids. Or if she does, that she’ll return to where Mackenzie and his boys are holed up,” Coulson said curtly, a heavy shadow brooding on his face. “We need a course of action that isn’t so nebulous.”
Of all of them, David Coulson was the most dangerous. Possessing a vicious temper and matching ruthlessness, he generally advocated the quickest and most bloody course of action, regardless of the circumstances.
Eric took a long, slow sip of ice water, forcing his face into stillness. “Amy Chastain adores those boys. It’s been three days. She won’t leave them alone or unprotected much longer. She’ll want them with her, in a place they’ll be safe. She obviously trusts Mackenzie and his men. She’ll take her boys to them.”
Coulson slammed down his whiskey glass so hard the ice cubes cracked like pistol reports. “Another assumption. You’re full of them. Mackenzie, hell, the whole lot of them, are targets. She was a fed before her marriage, for Christ’s sake. She’ll know that returning to their camp would put her children in danger. There is no logical reason for her to collect her children and take them there. Not when her brother and father are feds and perfectly capable of protecting the kids themselves. Which means tagging them is useless.”
Eric tensed at the derision in Coulson’s acidic voice, then forced his muscles to relax. While Amy Chastain’s brother was actively working against her, the woman didn’t know that, so Coulson’s words held weight.
“True.” He held Coulson’s cold gaze. “However, at the moment, we’re out of options. The SEALs have gone off grid. Which makes it rather difficult to neutralize them.” He paused, offering a derisive smile himself. “Amy will go after her children.” Of that at least he was sure. “Even if she doesn’t return to Mackenzie afterward, the tracking devices will give us access to her; through her, we’ll find them.” He paused, to lift an eyebrow. “I’m all for a proactive approach, if we had an approach to follow.”
Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) Page 2
