Names? Of people involved in the bombing plot? Did he intend to blackmail them? And why would that be valuable to him in Russia? But he made it sound like there was someone higher up the chain.
“How do you intend to get rich off bombing power plants?” She inched her hand back into her parka as if warming herself, all the while listening for the sound of another boat or any sign of help from the shore. Her fingers brushed the handle of the knife. Ready.
“Oh you rustic little bumpkin, just like your two friends there. They were all too willing to help me out, imagining I was every bit as dedicated to their cause as they were. This is so much bigger than that. Now sit back down, right here where I can keep my eye on you. Be a good girl or you’ll be swimming with your friends.”
She dropped into the seat beside him, for now her will to live strong, but her legs still not all that steady. The murderous bastard eased the boat out of idle, and they surged ahead. Sea spray needling the air again, he steered around small icebergs littering their path.
The magnitude of what she faced threatened to overwhelm her. This man was certifiably evil. Her fingers slid around the knife handle again and this time she wouldn’t let go, even for an instant. She had lost any hope that he would let her live, and the farther away they went, the less chance Wade had of saving her. The Bering Sea, the islands, the mountains, all provided vast wastelands in which to dump her body.
No damn way. She wasn’t giving up on life. She wasn’t giving up on a future, a future with Wade, her rock-headed, stubborn, honorable lover. The only man ever to move her all the way to the core of her being. She wanted his body. She admired his integrity.
And just flat out loved Wade, the man.
The nose of the hull smacked a wave, hard, yanking her from her thoughts and jerking Brett’s gun hand for an instant. All the opportunity she needed.
Sunny whipped her hand free, blade reflecting the sun’s rays. She jabbed upward into the bastard’s gut. He stumbled from the steering wheel, the boat screaming forward through the waves. The heated gust of Brett’s shocked “Oomph” washed over her face. His mouth moved soundlessly, a trickle of blood sliding from the corner of his mouth. The gun fell from his slack hand…
Just as the boat rammed into an iceberg.
Chapter 19
In the back of the MH-60 Pave Hawk, Wade yanked on his antiexposure suit. Watertight rubber, it resembled the type skin divers used, but cinched in around the neck and feet. He pulled his focus in as tight as the seals on his suit, trying his damnedest to lose himself in training and routine.
Because if he let himself think about Sunny out there with terrorist bombers, with murderers, he would lose his mind.
To his right, Franco tugged on his gear. Out the open side hatch, his other four team members stood on the concrete landing pad by the power plant. It was agreed they would stay behind in case they were needed for triage in the event of an explosion. The bomb had been defused but the bomb squad still hadn’t finished inspecting the entire building. Lasky and the FBI wanted the kidnappers alive for information.
Wade just wanted Sunny.
Thank God for the MH-60 in the lot and years of training at their fingertips. They were in the chopper and ready to lift off in under five minutes. The door closed, sealing him into a dimly lit cocoon of wires and gear, mustiness of old equipment drenched in the fumes from hydraulic fluid. He welcomed the familiar in a day turned upside down.>He didn’t like the look of four people confabbing a little too tightly. He didn’t want to take his eyes off them just yet.
“She was over by the docks with her buddy Flynn. I think her sister was beside her, but then a chick in a parka is pretty much a chick in a parka, you know. Sunny with her hood down though? Can’t miss that blue stripe through her hair.”
Franco laughed low. “Better get your eyes off his woman’s stripe or you’re liable to get your ass kicked, old man.”
“Hmmm…” McCabe said. “That’s interesting. Your girl and her pals are taking a ride in one of the fishing boats by the festival. She must be going back to the lodge like you told her.”
He couldn’t imagine her doing that, not after the fire she’d just spit his way. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Where’s Lasky? Have they checked this place out? Or are they all still too busy arguing about who’s in control?”
The chatter in his earpiece grew louder, the intensity indicating something was heating up down there. Wade pressed his finger to the device, his buddies beside him going silent too just as Agent Lasky barked through the airwaves.
“Red alert, all eyes and ears up. We’ve got a hostage situation. I repeat, a hostage situation.”
Wade’s instincts blared and his gut clenched with the undeniable surety that Sunny was somehow in danger. As he shot to his feet, charging toward the metal stairs wrapped around the outside, he swept his binoculars around the power plant, praying he would find her…
He swept past Lasky. Then back again sharply, bringing the view in tighter. Flynn and Misty stood with the agents, their hoods down, so there was no mistaking them.
The same two people McCabe had just said he saw with Sunny in a boat.
***
Sea spray stung Sunny’s face like a thousand frozen needles. She suffered no delusions that these three people wanted to keep her alive. She’d stumbled into their getaway and now she was disposable. It was a race against time for Misty to find help soon enough to save her life.
How had Astrid and Ryker gotten tangled up with this man Brett? She recognized him from their plane trip earlier and shuddered to think she and Wade had been that close to death.
The hull chopped through the waves, farther from the power plant until it was just a speck. Farther and farther the craft raced from Wade and help.
She’d been so naïve to think she could save her sister, but God, how could she have foreseen something this huge? This evil?