Perfectly Exposed (Command Unit Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter Six

Rico pulled up. Jack didn’t have to ask how he knew to show up with an evidence kit. Silently the two of them gloved up and went to work.

Working fast, they went over the rest of the vehicle and Jack called in the visible information to Brad as they moved through it. He also outlined his concerns with the op he’d just completed in conjunction with an international team that included way too many agencies.

By the time they were done with the car, they knew Brad’s deeply unsavory associations as well as his highly classified contacts had no noise on a job to take a woman out of Florida.

They had no clues. No direction, no reason for this besides the loose fucking association to Jack’s op by her being present at that meeting with Yatzic Friday night. That case was over and there was no logical way someone could have made the deep connection between her and Jack that fast.

Jack and Rico headed to Hailey’s apartment to comb that sucker. Brad sent another operative, Mike White, to go over Jack’s cover apartment. There was little hope of information but they were working anything, no matter how improbable. It was the only other place she’d been that was also connected to the case.

An hour later Jack was holding on to sanity by will alone. Her apartment housed a harmless young woman. There was nothing there that made her a target. Nothing hidden under, behind, inside any piece of furniture. No mystery compartments, no false walls, no secrets that gave them one single fucking lead.

Jack’s phone rang and he grabbed it, staring at the screen. Brad calling. “Mike has cameras and mics at your cover place,” Brad clipped. “Not cheap and not sloppy. Serious sophisticated shit we have not seen before. Check your place.”

Punching off, Jack called to Rico. “New tech. Mics and cameras at my other place. Check here again. I’m at my apartment.”

Forty minutes later the men were in Command’s office. Along with Brad, Jack, Rico and Mike were Trace, Sam, Dean and Jason. The eight-man core group of their slightly larger organization. They went over the few bits of information they had.

“Jesus fuck. No idea where these came from.” Trace turned a combination camera and mic over in his hand. “Think the guy made them himself. Materials are from all over the globe but the tech required to create this is not public and I haven’t even heard a whisper about it being developed.”

“New player,” Brad stated. “Introducing himself? Making a statement?”

Snarls of agreement sounded around the room. That was the only solid fact any of them could make fit. Every other theory was sand, sifting away as soon as they touched it.

Jack’s phone lit up. Hoping for something, a ransom demand, anything he grabbed it. His dad. Jack rejected the call, keeping the line open in case the dead-and-didn’t-know-it bastard reached out to him.

Brad’s phone rang. Everyone looked at him as he activated the call, his deep voice greeting, “Stone.”

Jack’s brows rose as he realized his father not only had Brad’s number but knew the man would answer.

Brad’s side of the conversation progressed into the silence. “Yeah, send it to this number. I’m putting you on speaker.”

His father’s voice came from Brad’s phone. “I know you got trouble, gentlemen. I received a note three minutes ago.”

Brad interrupted, “It’s coming up on my computer screen now.”

More silence as they all moved around to read Brad’s laptop.

I have waited long for this. What I take now is less than the woman you took from me, but, Stone, even from the grave, I will have retribution. Any woman a Stone claims will die a used animal.

“You have some other information to share?” Jack questioned as his eyes moved over the damn message again.

“What’s the SITREP. I might be able to help,” Smoke Stone asked. “The content refers to an operation that is classified.”

Brad briefed him on the information they had, the new tech bugging one of Jack’s places, the fast-grab evidence at her car and the whole lot of nothing they’d come up with.

Smoke immediately had a shit load of direction. “Look for a boat that left dock today. Something registered in Eastern Europe with cargo deliveries in the Black Sea. Check every port on both coasts.”

“On it,” Brad stated, nodding at Mike who was already working his laptop. “Tell us why we’re focusing on a boat?”

Smoke Stone sighed. His regret whispered through the phone as he continued. “My team took a woman from this guy. It ruined his life in a big way, both professionally and personally, but his pockets were deep. Shipping money from way back. The op is still classified. How we did it made us more and him nothing. Made him a fool. He vowed retribution and attempted to retrieve our girl, several times. Eliminating him and his resources was logical. It was only after we realized he’d planned for that contingency and attempts on her life continued. You were a boy, Jack. No reason to guess his scope included you, son. I underestimated his level of hate. Wouldn’t have kept it from you.”

Jack regarded Brad’s phone as his father talked. Nothing coming out of it was anything but shit-on-a-stick bad. Steeling himself not to respond to the knowledge that Hailey’s chances of survival had just taken a nose dive, he listened.

“Before the boat reaches international waters, I recommend going in heavily armed. Could be legit commercial sailors, could be professional pirates.”

“How well connected is this guy from the grave?” Brad drawled. “Have you seen new tech in his party bag before?”

“The bastard has financed this operation with zero return for thirty years. First attempt to retrieve our woman was in eighty-four. Bastard died in ninety-two. I watched the lights go out myself. His company and fortune were dismantled at that time. We were aware he had an accomplice by the end of ninety-three but even that went quiet by two thousand four. Someone looking for opportunity this long is a disciple who I had assumed was running out of cash. Level of armament is a crapshoot because it looks like he’s found a money maker. The new tech toys.”

“I got three possible boats,” Mile stated. “One out of Port Canaveral and one out of Tampa. Both are already underway. A third leaves Jacksonville tonight at 0100.”

“Pick the vessel likely to get to international waters first. Coast Guard can board the other two,” Smoke suggested from the phone.

“Thank you, Commander,” Brad said.

“You’re welcome, Commander,” Smoke acknowledged. “Anything I can do, son. Let me know.”

“Later,” Jack clipped, eyes on Brad who had addressed his father as an equal. He didn’t have space in his brain to deal with the fact that his father, a rancher in Montana, had always avoided discussing his own service experience. Much like Jack currently did because almost every mission had been classified.

Nor that his dad’s two lifelong friends, both buddies from military days, also worked and lived on the ranch he’d been raised on. No. No time to deal with the information that strung together in a way that indicated a fuck of a lot more than his father had ever disclosed.

The room went wired as guys opened maps and got down to planning the operation. Jack watched silently, aware he had little to offer at this stage. His emotional involvement a question no one was asking out loud.

Controlling the lip-curling snarl, Jack was honest with himself. He had to get his head in the war room. Any other thoughts were unacceptable. She needed his focus. He had to give her that. She deserved it.

“Let’s move,” Brad clipped. The others had wrapped up what they could do from this location. It was time to move. Thank fuck.

***

They had to go with the obvious target. The
Sidonya Nadya
was registered deep in Eastern Europe and had set sail an hour early according to the freight forwarder’s information. A cargo ship.

Already it had taken too damn long to gear up and get underway. Jack forced his focus into the constricted timeline of the operation, going over the mission. Mentally working the actions required to get to the objective, every possible contingency, and its necessary response.

The weather gave them a pirate’s night. High cloud cover, no moon, calm seas. Coming at the ship in its wake, the men stayed low, reducing their silhouettes as they entered the danger zone when it was most likely to be spotted. Pucker factor on this part of a mission was always high but for the experienced operators deadly calm was the only discernible expression on their black-painted faces.

It wasn’t possible to go silent on a wet, topside approach, they used the huge vessel’s engine noise to mask their own. The inflatable boat zipped into the ship’s massive wake without incident, all eyes were trained on the deck above them, but nothing moved.

Grapples with coated hooks to reduce sound snaked up the hull. Black-clad figures slithered up and over deck rails of the commercial vessel without an alarm sounding. The bitch was too huge to search cold so the plan was to start on the bridge, take out the radio room, and seize control of the engine room. Then they’d see if anyone wanted to live by giving up information.

There were only two crew members on the bridge, and they wanted to live. Jack wasn’t willing to guarantee that because the fucking bastards knew exactly why they were there as soon as they entered. The rats gave up the rest of the crew as fast as they could, which meant every soul on board knew about the party planed in the crew mess. The number of survivors now depended on what they found at the “party”.

Rico remained on the bridge to cover the ship with his sniper rifle in case the unfriendlies had friends.

Down on the upper deck, doors to the crew mess were open. It was easy to hear the bidding as men bought a position in line. The two naked women tied to tables were the obvious objects the men were bidding on. Neither woman moved, both were obviously beaten, faces swollen, contusions visible across their bodies.

Brad and Mike were on point after the flash bang went off, swiftly incapacitating the crewmembers closest to the door. Jack and Sam took down whomever was between them and the two women. The fourteen commercial seamen were not a challenge to the highly skilled operators.

Ruthlessly keeping his focus narrowed to the next step in getting her safe, Jack checked Hailey’s pulse. It was strong. He went about the business of freeing her unconscious body from the damn table and checking for broken bones. Bones felt good. Dean was at his back as he completed checking and freeing her. Jack lifted her to his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and moved out for the deck.

Sam was lifting his unconscious girl off her table when Jack glanced back at the room. Trace guarded Sam’s back as he got his girl out and followed Jack and Dean.

The crew was in restraints. Brad was on his sat phone. Moving a prone and restrained sailor out of his way via boot to gut, Brad made his way across the room to where Jack and Sam were exiting the area.

“Coast Guard ETA three minutes,” he relayed. “We’ll get this.”

Jack tamped down the burn. Hailey was his first responsibly and he wasn’t going to leave her to someone else’s care. She was still unconscious and uniquely vulnerable. The security of being in his arms if she woke was what he had to give her. In light of every damn thing he was refusing to think about what could have already happened to her, it was all he had to offer. He hoped like hell she had been kept out the entire time, but that was a fucking best-case wish. His next pressing concern was that these bastards never saw the inside of a cushy U.S. prison.

“Guard out of Gitmo?” Jack asked. Having the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay instead of a stateside base would be his preference. Made the questioning process less gentle and shit.

“Yep. This boat is full of Al Qaeda tangos,” Brad confirmed.

Across the room one of the captives started protesting loudly, demanding rights and spewing information that marked him as the probable captain. None of the sailors had identifiable officer indicators on their clothes. Mike deployed the boot method of shutting him up then explained the obvious.

“You are in U.S. waters, shithead. You were bidding the order of rape for that man’s woman.” Mike nodded at Jack. “You are already a kidnapper, slave trader and I believe we will find significant weight in drugs on board. He would rather shoot you than transport your ass to any damn place. I feel the same. Gonna give us a reason to satisfy that urge? Because I gotta confess, that bitch is riding me hard.” Mike smiled in a way that displayed teeth and deadly desires.

The man on the floor shrank into himself as he shook his head no.

Jack headed for the deck to wait for the chopper. The few minutes’ wait meant he could wrap her in the Mylar blanket that was part of every man’s pack.

Chapter Seven

Hailey fought it, but the haze of unconsciousness gradually evaporated, taking away the nothingness and, with it, her hiding place. But the wave of pain didn’t rush over her. Instead she found a new type of nothing. This one was warm, soft and filled with muted sounds. Rather pleasant.

The only hard thing was the hand holding hers. Wait. Hand holding hers?

She’d learned the hard way not to tense, not to move, not to give away consciousness in any way at all. One time jerking awake had accomplished that. Now she tried to focus on her surroundings without actually opening her eyes. It was difficult until someone spoke.

Softly, deep tones communicated, “Wheels up whenever you’re ready, man.”

Right beside her the response. “Yeah, be out in a minute.”

Jack!

Jack was sitting beside her. Afraid to open her eyes and test the hallucination she did it anyway. He was still there. His face was turned in the direction of the other voice. Hailey had no time to investigate that as his gaze dropped to her.

“Baby,” he breathed as their eyes met.

He seemed real but her world felt in some way soft focused. Hailey didn’t dare believe he was actually with her but this was a very nice break from reality. He appeared older, there were lines bracketing his mouth. His skin was stretched tight, features accentuated in brutal relief. It was Jack but different, more elementally male. Perhaps extreme stress colored one’s fantasies.

“You’re good. It’s over,” Jack informed her gently.

That was nice. Fantasy Jack was comforting her.

“We are headed home in a minute,” he continued. “Buddy of mine has a helo so you can sleep if you want. No worries.”

Hailey felt unease slither into her comfy world. This was a lot of information for a hallucination. Having a buddy with a helicopter wouldn’t be a stretch for Jack. Perhaps he actually was in the container with her. Making sense of how he might have joined her wasn’t as important as warning him. Disjointed panic knifed across the pleasant dream.

“He is here! Be careful!” Hailey pushed past painfully cracked lips. Jack’s face tightened above her. Lines etched deeper between his brows and beside his mouth as muscles in his neck bunched. Good, he was taking her seriously.

“Who is here, baby?”

“The man, the man from the club,” she whispered desperately. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. He’s going to kill you!”

“Which man?” Leaning over her, Jack drew even closer. His already scary face was carved with menace.

“The one sitting behind you,” Hailey gasped urgently, clutching his hand as she felt the fog of unconsciousness now threatening her. “Behind you…” But the black won.

Her eyes closed and her little body relaxed in a way Jack knew she was gone again. Looking up at the man leaning against the wall across from him, Jack straightened slowly. The other man glanced away from Jack’s eyes to curse softly under his breath.

“Not one of the ship’s crew then,” Jack growled. “Not one of Yatzic’s goons. Jesus, fuck! Who the hell is after my woman?”

Eyes the same pale blue as his own met Jack’s as Jed “Smoke” Stone replied, “Someone who should have died long ago. Any chance of surveillance in that damn club?”

“Unlikely,” Jack gritted. “You will be telling me where this is coming from on the hop to Florida. In detail. I don’t give a fuck about classified.”

“Yeah, I will,” Smoke agreed.

***

“Jesus, that is fucked,” Jack bit out several hours later, starring at the man who had raised him.

“Cold war. Everyone was fucked,” Smoke agreed.

Hailey was safely sleeping after having woken several times on the trip up to central Florida. Each time she was progressively clearer and had given them a nicely detailed description of her kidnapper. The man had not intended to let her live so had not bothered with concealing his face or tattoos.

The ride from Gitmo to the Marks ranch in central Florida hadn’t actually been long enough for Smoke to tell the whole story. The mission had occurred in 1978 and was still classified. Probably always would be.

Shocked the shit out of Jack to learn his dad was the original Command. Yet it was an indisputable fact since Brad Marks concurred on the Intel. The two Commanders were not strangers. Another thing Jack intended to have a conversation about as soon Hailey was safe.

The large Marks family room held the current Command, his men and what remained of the original group. Smoke Stone’s two best friends, men Jack had called uncles all his life, showed up the morning the plane touched down.

They couldn’t give full disclosure of the mission that was the subject at hand. Its bulletproof classified status was something this group of men understood. The operation had created a madman who was still trying to reengineer its outcome, despite his own death decades ago. The original event occurred shortly before Jack was even born.

“Your girl, she’s good?” Jack pressed. The woman the original Unit had rescued was the reason for a madman’s insane quest for vengeance.

“Yeah,” Smoke confirmed. “Secured her before heading south.”

“Secured?” Jack questioned. “You wanna explain that?”

“No.” Smoke grunted at his son’s disbelieving look. “What I wanna do is find the bastard and gut the son of a bitch.” Unintelligible male noises of agreement sounded around the room.

“Recognition software will take a couple hours grinding through the St. Pete area,” Brad stated. “Get some rest now because I don’t care how many matches it comes up with, we are hunting until it’s done. This old world, multigenerational blood feud shit ends with us.” Brad nodded at Smoke. “Your men up for this?”

Smoke’s eyes narrowed as he smiled. Even at sixty-four it was clear age had yet to tame the warrior. Lean and tall like his son, power rippled in mature muscles that flexed infinitesimally. “This is our mission. Try to keep us off it.”

The two men leaning against the wall behind Smoke nodded. The muscle on their frames might not be whiplash fast anymore, both at the very least in their fifties, but they still maintained what appeared to be negative body fat numbers.

All his life, Jack had called Peter “Blue” Spanos and Ray “Pike” Wilster, Uncle Blue and Uncle Pike. He’d known they were his father’s friends from the service and had even understood the relationship as an adult. Jack regarded them as family because they were. Understanding them as original Command operators made total sense. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to get a shitload more information out of those three fuckers when this was over. Jack communicated with a narrow glance. All three men gave him a chin jerk as if he’d said the words out loud.

“Good. Four hours we should have some results to start working with. Meet here. Complete list in by the end of the week but I hope we have the fucker before then.” Brad stood as he finished speaking, as did all the men, moving out to find a bed for a few hours.

***

Jack slipped back into the room Hailey was using. Turning to the bed, he found eyes alertly watching. The dark head didn’t lift, likely held there by the slight weight of the sleeping woman’s palm resting atop it. A large dog lay facing the door, body flush against the woman under the covers but in no way resting. Guarding.

Dean’s K-9 partner, Apollo, was a warrior as highly trained as his human. When guarding those he considered in need of protection, the massive German shepherd was a lethal threat who would die before leaving his post.

Apollo remained motionless as Jack stood by the door, holding it open. “Off duty, buddy,” Jack informed the intelligent eyes watching him. The dog didn’t move. Apollo seemed to be weighing Jack’s ability to protect the already wounded human female. The debate wasn’t going Jack’s way.

Jack turned in the door and leaned out into the hall. “Dean,” he snapped quietly. “Convince the dog I can guard her.”

It wasn’t that Jack and Apollo were strangers. Far from it, which was why Jack turned to the human Apollo respected most to assure the dog that the little female was safe.

Dean grinned at Jack then stuck his head in the room. No words were spoken as he looked at Apollo for a moment then nodded. Immediately the large dog carefully slid out from under Hailey’s hand and crawled off the bed.

“Thanks,” Jack said quietly to both Dean and Apollo.

“Later, man,” Dean rumbled. Apollo dropped down on the hall floor with a huff, stretched out and closed his eyes. Both men looked down at the dog then let it go. Guard duty was part of the shepherd’s DNA. Apollo had left the room as requested but obviously thought that was enough of a compromise for the human males.

Closing the door behind him, Jack was faced with another set of eyes watching him. She didn’t move as he approached the bed.

“I need a shower,” Hailey said softly.

Jack stopped beside her. “You know they didn’t…” he started, but she wouldn’t let him finish.

“I know,” Hailey interrupted him. “But I need a shower. Will you help me?”

“Shower coming up. Wait. I’ll be right back.” Jack strode into the attached bathroom. He turned on the taps, checked the temperature, and made sure the spray wasn’t too hard. Back beside the bed, he stripped quickly. Hailey didn’t move.

Naked, Jack carefully pulled off her covers. He had to put a knee on the bed to get the leverage to lift her to a sitting position, taking all of her weight. Still she sucked in a sharp breath and he knew she bit back a gasp of pain.

“Let me do the work, baby,” he begged softly.

There was barely an inch of her body that wasn’t deeply bruised. The only places her skin had been broken were her face and wrists, but the bastard had methodically beat her. The story was written across her flesh, marks clearly telling anyone who knew how to read them that the beating had stopped and started again several times. Hailey hadn’t talked about it yet.

Getting her under the shower spray, Jack ordered her not to move. Going over every inch of her with the soft washcloth and liquid soap, he gently cleaned. Her hair was last, shampoo and conditioner. When they were done he looked into her eyes. “Okay, baby?” he asked.

“Again,” she rasped.

He did. When he was done this time, he didn’t ask. Just turned off the water and helped her out. Back in the bedroom he was reaching for the clean nightgown Julie had left them.

“No, your T-shirt, please,” Hailey requested.

Jack dropped the silk and tagged his tee from his pile of clothes. It wasn’t clean but that was not what mattered right now. She needed to be surrounded by him, his scent, his presence, his warmth. Safety. She needed to feel safe and he was fucking thrilled that his tee was something she wanted to get her there. This could have gone a whole ’nother way.

He had deliberately gotten naked before he even touched her covers. She needed to know exposure was not one sided in any way. This was them dealing together, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear.

The bastard had drugged her in her car. She’d woken collared and chained to the floor of a shipping container. So far, the little she had told them and the evidence in the container said she had been naked most of that time. It would scar her. The fact that the rape kit came back negative was a fucking blessing but not a free pass from pain. Not even close.

When she was in bed again and as comfortable as she could get, Jack stretched out and gathered her gently into his arms. It was a lose hold but he damn well wasn’t going to let the bastard come between them. How she’d handle touch emotionally later was a question. Staring at the ceiling, he indulged in the pointless thought that he would have given a limb to ensure she never had to fight this battle, the one back to normal.

Five years he’d guarded her. Calling it waiting for her to grow up was polite and partly true, but deep down he knew it was something else. Pristine beauty, that was what she had been. Not ignorant, but so damn innocent. The instinctive protector in his soul had been calmed by that beauty. Making sure the putrid underworld never touched her, never marked her in any way, that was his job.

Fail.

Jesus, she didn’t even know it was his fault yet.

Jack shut his eyes. Failing her like he had, he fucking shouldn’t be allowed near her. He knew it, but still, he’d fight to the death if anyone tried to take her away from him. Selfish bastard that he was, as long as she let him, they were battling her way back to normal together.

“What happens now?” Hailey asked into the silence.

Jack’s eyes snapped open and his head turned on the pillow to look at her. She was staring up at the ceiling.

“You gave us a great description, baby. Brad has input the markers in a program that scans DMV records, several other government agencies and then moves on to less official visual records,” Jack summarized. “We investigate the matches until we find this guy. Then we neutralize the threat.”

Hailey regarded the ceiling in silence for a while. “That sounds like it will take a long time.”

“No,” Jack growled. He couldn’t keep the aggression out of his voice. “There are eleven highly trained, deeply motivated operators focused on this guy. Our reach goes deep into the lowest places scum can hide. What you need to believe is, this is over for you. I promise you, Hailey, he’s gone in every way as far as you’re concerned.”