Page 88 of Savage Reckoning

“What about the blood Nico saw?” I ask. “What if they…?”

“If he’d been injured or killed, we’d have found the body,” Ethan insists.

“Not if they threw him the sea.” I bite back tears. “He was on his own. No one saw…”

Casey reaches for me and pats my hand, comfort indeed coming from her. And an indication of how concerned she is.

Jack makes a call to the surveillance team watching Sokolov’s makeshift headquarters on the mainland. “Anything happening? We suspect they’ve taken a prisoner and we need to know where he’s being held.”

“No one has entered or left in the last two hours, boss. There’s plenty of activity inside, though, charging round like blue-arsed flies, they are. Probably got the news of the losses they had trying to reach Caraksay.”

Ethan and Jack exchange a glance.

Ethan nods. “Issue the order to move. I want that shithole wiped out and everyone there eliminated. If Sawyer’s been taken prisoner, I want them to have nowhere to go. And I need our own choppers in the air searching the area for any vessel that could be hosting a submersible. Chances are, if he’s still alive, he’s on a ship somewhere, and the bastards can’t be that far away by now if they had to retrieve their submersible and land it. I want eyes everywhere. Find it.”

“I think it’s just here.”

There’s silence. All eyes swivel to Frankie who is unrolling a tattered map of Scotland. He points to a spot in the ocean, about ten miles offshore.

“How the fuck would you know that?” Tony demands.

“He’s got my fitness tracker in his jacket pocket.”

“Your what?”

“The strap broke when I fell off that roof,” the youth replies. “Rome picked it up and gave it to Mr Sawyer, who put it in his pocket. I kept thinking I might ask him for it back, but he’s a scary dude, so I just… left it.”

“How do you know he still has it?”

“How else would it have got here?” Frankie replies, jabbing his finger into the spot on the map. “The tracker’s still transmitting. He probably just forgot he had it.”

Ethan looks to Casey, who simply shrugs.

“It’s the only lead we have, boss.” Jack is on his feet. “I’ll organise a sweep of the area.”

“You don’t trust Gabriel, do you?”

Everyone else has dispersed, to helicopters to join the search, or other duties to shore up the defences of the island, just in case. I take the opportunity to confront Ethan, a risky endeavour at the best of times. Normally, I’d stay out of the operational stuff, but this is personal.

“I don’t really know him,” he replies.

I smell evasiveness and press on. “You know enough. I realise you were… out of it, but he’s done his share these last weeks and not let anyone down.”

His eyes narrow, and at first, I think he’s going to refuse to discuss it. After all, Caraksay isn’t a democracy, however much Ethan is inclined to listen to those around him most of the time. Ethan Savage’s word is law. End of. But he relents.

“He’s an outsider. He turns up out of nowhere. We don’t really know what his motives are or what’s in it for him.”

“Sokolov…” I begin.

“That’s what he says. How do we know it’s not another of his cover stories. He might be still working undercover with us as his target.”

“He isn’t. I know it.”

“Megan, I get it. I know you feel… something… for him even if I can’t quite work out what or why. He let you down before.”

“Not now. Not anymore. We worked that out.”

He resists the temptation to roll his eyes. Just. But his scepticism is plain to see.

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