Chapter 4
4
Night Storm had just been deployed on a mission. So had Black Dawn. Midnight Delta, out of Coronado was the next team up to bat, so it looked like Omega Sky had a breather. It didn’t matter; if necessary, Kostya would have gone over their new commander’s head and talked to Captain Hale about the situation, and why they couldn’t be deployed.
If their commander was still Lt Commander Simon Clark it wouldn’t have been a problem, but they couldn’t take a chance with the new guy. Not with their families being targeted. It was possible this new commander, Theo Nash, might bring in the FBI, because the military wasn’t supposed to operate on US soil, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that the men of Omega Sky were going to let anybody but themselves care for their friends and families.
Not a chance in fucking hell.
Today everybody but Gideon and Mateo put in a full day's training at Little Creek SEAL center. Gideon was still handling the ‘faulty gas furnace’ that had destroyed his house. Jonas Wolff’s brother was a Battalion Fire Chief in Norfolk. He had enough pull with the Virginia Beach Fire Investigator to get them to go along with that story after a long weekend fishing together and him explaining the circumstances. Jonas was going to owe his brother.
Now they were all assembled at Kostya’s house. Gideon’s fiancé Jada was with them, and so was Lark Barona, their lieutenant’s wife. Jada was almost as good, if not better than Gideon, when it came to cyber shit. Lark was there because, as an award-winning journalist, she had sources around the world, and could often uncover things that would help the team when they were at a loss.
“It’s got to be Amanda,” Ryker said. “Come on, Braxton. She was all over you in Dubai. She recruited you to be part of the Kraken Elite. Don’t you agree?”
Mateo knew Braxton had worked undercover on that mission, and Ryker was correct. Braxton had the best chance of knowing whether Amanda Melton would have taken over the corrupt private military consulting company. Their methods were brutal. In the beginning, they were known to torture and kill whoever was necessary in order to get their finder’s fees. As time went on, they became the ‘go-to’ company to handle assassinations and whatever dirty work that people were willing to pay for. On their last mission in Dubai, they found out that a zealot in the CIA had hired them, but the CIA director assigned the Omega Sky SEAL team to stop the Kraken while he worked to discover the traitor in his organization.
Braxton got up from the ottoman where he’d been sitting and started pacing the living room. “Look, I agree Amanda would throw her own kids into a volcano to take over that operation, but I’m not so sure that all-male outfit would let her. That’s all I’m saying.”
Mateo thought about his mother. They’d come to America when she was recruited to work for DuPont. She had received her PhD in chemistry and had authored a white paper about cutting-edge polymers for her dissertation in Argentina when DuPont sponsored her to come to work for them in the United States. She’d struggled to work in an all-male laboratory, and that was a little over twenty-five years ago, but she’d succeeded.
“I think the right woman could take over the Kraken. Especially if she was cruel and brutal enough, and everything you’ve said about her tells me she is,” Mateo said to the group in general. “Tell me, Braxton, would she be willing to kill a couple of people, arbitrarily, just to instill fear in the others?”
“In a second,” Braxton nodded slowly. “You’re right, Mateo. She would. She has an ice-encrusted dollar sign where her heart should be.”
“Okay, so we go with the supposition that Amanda Melton is in charge. We agree she showed up from nowhere, and she’s Australian,” Jada said as her fingers flew over her laptop keyboard. “It’s likely that’s not her real name, but do you really think that was a real Australian accent?” She looked up at Braxton.
“Sure,” Braxton said. “She wasn’t faking. It was a stressful situation. She would have slipped if it wasn’t.”
“Wait a minute,” Gideon stopped his fiancé before she started typing again. “It wasn’t Australian. It was Kiwi.”
Braxton asked, “What’s Kiwi?” before Mateo had a chance to ask.
“New Zealand. They kind of sound alike, but not really. I should have picked up on it before.” He looked over to Jada. “We’re going to need a sketch, then do facial recognition of women coming from New Zealand to Dubai. It’s pretty much a straight shot. She might have had to make a stop in Australia, but it would have been a connection only.”
“Yeah, but if she’d been part of the Kraken for a while, why are you assuming she came from her home? She could have been operating anywhere in the world before going to Dubai.” Ryker said.
Gideon rubbed the top of his head.
“He’s got you there,” Kostya muttered.
“You’re forgetting the first rule in all of this,” Mateo spoke up. Everybody turned to him.
“Okay, Big Guy,” Gideon said. “Spit it out.” Then he sighed, and Mateo could see that he realized what he missed and he was pissed at himself.
Mateo grinned.
“Follow the money,” they said in unison.
Jada hit Gideon’s arm. “Are you telling me you haven’t been doing searches on how they’re getting paid?”
“Cut me some slack, Sweets. They haven’t had a successful mission that I’ve been able to track in ages, so how could I possibly follow the money?”
She pursed her lips and gave a sad shake of her head.
He held his head in shame. “Okay. Let me get you the names of the men who paid them when we were in Türkiye,” he said to Jada.
“Finding the Kraken is half of the equation, now tell me about your families. I want to make sure everybody is covered,” Kostya said as he looked around the room. “You first, Drakos, since your family is the size of a small town.”
Jase was leaning against a wall. It was the first time Mateo had seen him be anything but in full alert mode since the explosion.
“Bonnie and the kids and Grandma are with my folks. They’re not staying anyplace that is familiar. They’re at a friend’s bed-and-breakfast. She’s shut it down for the duration and went on vacation. My brother Bruno, who used to be with Homeland Security, is there with a couple of his buddies. I trust him. Things are tight.”
“What about your brother and sister-in-law?” Lark asked.
“They both decided to take their families to Hawaii. My sister Angelica set them up at some hot shot director’s beach house for a month. Malik told me he’d pay me to get into this kind of trouble every other year.”
Mateo was happy to see the left side of Jase’s mouth curl up just a little.
“And the others?” Gideon asked.
“I’ve made calls to all of them. Five are out of the country, so I’m assuming they’re safe. Three families went to Florida, that included Elani and her brood, and my other two brothers have taken jobs where they’re on site. The one I’m most worried about is Angelica. But Bruno insisted on two bodyguards while she’s on location. I vetted these guys. They’re good. The filming ends in two weeks. If we’re not done by then, Renzo is taking her to Jasper Creek.”
“What about Renzo?” Kostya asked. “Aren’t he and Millie sitting ducks on her farm?”
“She’s gotten a little better. Somehow, he got her to agree to sit things out in a cabin up in the Smoky Mountains. I don’t know how he did it, but my brother has always been a bit of a miracle worker. My guess is, he made her think he was in danger.”
The men chuckled.
“Asshats.” Jada muttered to Lark.
Kostya turned to look at everyone else. He went through the same drill. He wanted to know about parents, sisters, brothers, or any long-term relationships. Truly, Mateo didn’t know why in the hell he was asking—like any of his teammates would leave anything to chance.
“Mateo, what about you? You haven’t said anything,” Kostya asked.
“There’s nobody I need to worry about,” he assured him.
“Are you sure? I would have thought there would have been two or three,” Braxton teased, and Jase laughed.
“Hey, watch it,” Mateo glowered. “There might have been a few women in my life, but there was never crossover. When I was with someone, I was with them exclusively.”
“So, aren’t you with somebody exclusively at the moment? After all, the weekend is coming up.” Braxton’s eyes were positively dancing.
“You’re an asshole, Braxton. Trudie and I went our separate ways two months ago, and no, I’m not seeing anyone at the moment.”
“Are you okay? Did they thoroughly check you out at the hospital?” Jase asked.
“Enough already,” Kostya broke in. He turned to Gideon. “So, that’s eighty-seven. Is that the count you got?”
“Yep.”
“I want each and every one of these people to have some type of life alert that comes to each one of you. I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Wait a minute. My grandmother thinks she won a trip to Branson, Missouri. She’s going to know something is up if I tell her she has to wear a life alert,” Landon said.
“How old is your grandmother?” Jonas asked.
“Grandma Kathleen is sixty-eight, and she can probably out-shoot most of you. She still goes duck hunting every season, and if necessary, she’ll fill in as a bartender in town when a waitress is sick. But mostly she’s a church-going lady who works at the food pantry, and she deserves time watching Elvis impersonators and playing poker at Branson. If I tell her to wear a life alert, she’ll tan my hide for sure.”
“Landon,” Gideon started. Mateo clearly heard the exasperation in his voice. “These will not be typical life alerts. Most of these will be concealed in wrist watches or jewelry. For the kids, they’ll be in those kinds of braided?—”
“Friendship bracelets. Yeah, my girlfriend has dozens. A lot of them are Swiftie bracelets. She tries to get me to wear them, but I can’t hang with that.”
“Thank everloving fuck,” Braxton called out. “But yeah, I can see how the little kids could wear them. We can ask Bonnie if some of the boys would wear them.”
“Yeah, I saw the little boys at Lachlan and Amber’s birthday party wearing some. It’ll depend on their age,” Mateo stated.
“So, we’ll get your grandmother a necklace or a watch. It’ll be fine, Landon,” Lark assured him. Kostya squeezed her shoulder from where he was seated on the arm of the couch, right next to his wife. “I’m going to talk to each of you about who we’re getting the alerts for, and we’ll make sure to get the right thing for them to wear. Trust me,” Lark said seriously.
Mateo saw every man in the room relax. They trusted Lark, and it wasn’t just because she was married to their lieutenant. She’d proven herself on that mission in Pakistan. She was a warrior, the same as they were.
“Now for the enemy. You’re right.” Kostya nodded his head at him. “Gideon and Jada can work on the money angle, but what else do we have?”
“I say we dig deep on Ely Roberts and Ephram Brady,” Jonas spoke up. “Yeah, they’re both dead, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t training other men to take over for them. Also, if we find family members of either of them, maybe they’ll know of other folks who are part of the Kraken.”
Everybody in the room smiled and Kostya turned to Lark. “Seems to me we need an investigative journalist digging up those kinds of answers.”
Lark gave an evil grin. “Let me at it.”
“Don’t forget Frank Sykes,” Ryker said. “He was the original leader of the Kraken.”
“Good point.” Kostya nodded. He turned to Lark. “So, you’re off making up the alerts. Who wants to take that over?”
“I do. I want to make sure Grandma will wear it,” Landon said with his hand raised.
Kostya nodded. “I’ll put you in touch with the woman who will make these up.”
“Linc, you, Braxton and Nolan do demolitions. Track down where that C-4 came from.”
“The rest of you are going to be with me at the base. We’re going to make a big show of being everywhere the Commander can see us, so it doesn’t look like we’re short men.”
“And when we hear something?” Jase asked.
“Then there will be more assignments, trust me,” Kostya said as he looked him in the eye. “Right now we’re focusing on the right things. We stick with the old leader of the Kraken, Frank Sykes and his two dead lieutenants, Ephram, and Ely, while keeping an eye out for Amanda. That’s more than enough to start on.”
Mateo looked around the room. Every single man had something in common with one another. They had people who were depending on them, people they loved and who loved them back. Everybody but him. If he had one damn word to say about things, he was going to take point on whatever popped up first. He was going to make damn sure all of his brothers got home to their families.