Chapter Twenty-Nine
Phoenix
Ares intercepted me at the stairs leading to the bridge. “Is she all right?”
Taking in his tone, stance, and position, I measured them against the silent warfighter I knew. Ares didn’t engage in small talk, and he didn’t care about the woman. Something else had him on edge. “Fine. Procurement?”
His head swiveled left to right as he scanned the main saloon. “Shouldn’t you have asked Cypher to do this?”
“No.” Everyone under my purview was with me for a reason. All the Tier Ones at Paragon Operations had their specialized skill sets in addition to their tactical training and proven track records. I looked beyond those particular areas of expertise when I recruited.
I brought Ares on board because it not only motivated Helios to stick around, but he defined solemnity. That made him the one person on my team I entrusted with clandestine intel. Not that I truly trusted anyone.
The former Delta operator didn’t question my decision again. “Procurement’s done. Delivery’s pending your instructions. I allowed the intel to leak as you asked.”
“Good copy.” I moved around him.
“Land based.”
I glanced back even though he wouldn’t fully see my expression. “Is that a question?”
“No.”
That gave me pause. No one knew my plan.
The equipment I’d asked Ares to get wouldn’t necessarily tip him off that I was making a move.
The servers could be construed as a necessary upgrade, and while he didn’t know where I was sending them, a land-based location was a reasonable assumption.
Except his cryptic statement didn’t track like he was asking about the equipment’s destination.
It sounded like he had concrete intel and was aiming it with intent, but that’d never been his MO.
Beyond his three-foot world, Ares had only ever shown concern for his immediate family.
Ignoring his last statement, I didn’t attempt to extrapolate his previous comment any further. “How’s Feralyn?”
“Secure.”
I hadn’t specifically asked if she was safe, but I took note of the answer and redirected. “Do you foresee any delivery problems with the equipment?”
“No.”
“Roger that.” I turned toward the stairs, and for the third time tonight, my six took a direct verbal hit.
“What’s your sister going to think about this?”
Hesitating a fraction of a second, an interval that would’ve gotten me killed on the battlefield, I realized my second mistake today.
Discounting Ares’s sense of familial loyalty.
He knew the Paragon’s heading after our next refuel.
He and Helios had worked an op with Ghost and Alpha.
They both knew my history, and Ares had put it together.
He didn’t know or care what I was planning. He cared about fallout.
I looked at a sniper with one of the highest kill rates in the SOF community. “I don’t know.”
Ares tipped his chin.
I hit the stairs.
Before I walked onto the bridge, my cell rang.
Glancing at the screen, I answered. “Cypher.”
“Your location’s getting pinged every five minutes, and the constant hacks are interfering with the firewall reconfig. This is our worst security breach to date. Tell me again why I’m letting this happen?”
I hadn’t told him in the first place. “It’s our only breach.” He’d caught every other attempt. “Stay mission focused. Anything else?”
“Trefor’s Falcon left Miami Executive an hour after you refueled in Marina Port Vell. The flight plan was filed for Athens, but the plane headed southeast before it went off the radar.”
The ship rocked stern to portside with another large swell. “Copy. Handling another issue.” I needed to get on the bridge and find out why the hell Helios hadn’t diverted yet.
“Yeah, a three-hundred-kilometer-wide storm you sailed right into. You’re about to hit near-gale-force winds.”
“I’m aware.” The Paragon could handle it, but I didn’t need Isla screaming all night. “Unless you have new intel for me, I’m ending the call.”
“Only that your hostage potentially has a brother. I found an old hospital record for her from when she was a minor. ER visit for a high fever. All other intel from the visit was wiped except a guardian was listed, affiliation stated as brother. The name came back as an alias. But here’s where it gets interesting.
The original payment processing for the ER visit was submitted as a TRICARE claim. ”
“The brother’s military.” TRICARE was the uniformed services’ healthcare plan for all service members and their immediate family.
“If there’s a brother,” Cypher countered. “The claim was immediately redacted, and the visit was paid for in cash. I tracked the TRICARE angle, but there’s no record in their system of that account number or service member, living or deceased. There’re no service records for the alias, period.”
Trained instincts and honed intuition I lived by kicked in, and I was already running down a scenario. “Age of the brother?”
“Again, not necessarily her brother, but the redacted TRICARE claim listed him as ten years older.”
The age would fit the assaulter who breached the estate. The wiped digital footprint would explain his skill set. “Track down any SOF operators with a similar birthdate who’ve since gone off grid.”
“If you’re thinking he was Special Forces and recruited by SAC, there aren’t going to be any records. This would be like asking me to run you through every government system.”
Exactly. “Run it.”
“Copy. One more heads-up. With November tracking you, taking into account the last location of Trefor’s Falcon, Alpha could be waiting when you refuel in Tenerife.”
I used to know Alpha like he was my blood brother. Ten years ago, on the Teams, when we were teenagers, there were two absolutes Adam never strayed from—his personal code of honor and his love for my sister.
Betting neither had changed, I was counting on Alpha being in Tenerife.
“Understood. Find Isla Sennan’s brother.” Ending the call, I walked onto the bridge.
I had a ship to reroute.
Then I was going to ask the woman who’d pulled Ares’s knife on him and evaded my security cameras why her Special Forces brother had come for her—then left her in my hands.