Page 42 of Guarding The Phoenix: Vol. 2

“Give it time. The drone is flying close to the water at a much slower speed to give it the appearance of a ship. If their boat has radar cloaking abilities like we suspect, we might have to wait until there’s visual confirmation of it following the first drone by the second one. It’s hovering above, using the clouds for cover.”

“Chase, how are we doing on our trajectory north?”

“Course is plotted. We’ll hug the coastline. That way if they try to catch us again or the bait doesn’t work, we can get ashore quickly. It’s the longer trek. I’ve included a stop in Seattle to refuel and restock our supplies before sailing up past Canada to Alaska.”

That was something at least. I nodded. “Good. As soon as we have confirmation that they’re hunting the tracking signals, we head out. Then I want to put as much distance between us and them as possible by morning.”

“Agreed. And if they don’t take the bait?”

“They will.” My response sounded more confident than I felt. Santos was a crafty bastard. He always wound up one step ahead. It bothered the fuck out of me too. Mainly because it didn’t make sense how he continued to evade capture with the best minds in the CIA hunting him.

The next hour we waited, watching the drones on radar, the air rife tension. If the ship didn’t take the bait, we needed to employ a different tactic. One option would be renting an RV to drive north. It would take us off the grid. We could pay cash at RV parks and go as off grid as possible. It would be tight quarters and would entail significantly more time on our end to reach our destination. We’d need to finagle our way through the Canadian border with our weapons and that could be dicey.

It wouldn’t be the first time we’d snuck weapons into a foreign country. And it wouldn’t be the last time either.

Time slowed to a crawl while we waited. This was ridiculous. Absurd even. I opened my mouth, ready to abort the mission and fall back on the contingent plan.

Mateo clapped. “Son of a bitch, they took the bait. The ship took the bait. It’s sailing south toward the drone.”

Elation filled me. “About fucking time. How far behind the drone are they?”

“Thirty minutes or so.”

“Still too close for my liking. Keep track of that ship. I want to know where it sails every fucking step of the way. If it’s still following the drone in an hour, then we head out. Don’t lose it.”

“On it,” Mateo nodded, shifting in his seat.

“Start getting us ready to depart, Chase. I want to leave the minute the hour is up.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Chase saluted with a smartass smirk.

Fucker.

But he didn’t miss a beat. He headed down to the engine room to double check everything was in proper working order. Like he hadn’t gone over the engine and fuel lines multiple times today. But it made me glad that he wasn’t taking any chances.

I went down below deck to give Axel a heads up. The door to the bedroom was open. And he was fucking Kylie. The two of them were wrapped around each other, oblivious to the outside world.

I stood outside the doorframe and watched. It was a lot like watching a porno with the gigantic man, screwing the petite woman. I pressed my palm against my hard-on. I couldn’t join them. Mores the pity. There would be time on the sail north to avail myself of her charms.

But at least he was keeping Kylie occupied while we took care of business.

I headed back to the command deck. “Where are we at Mateo?”

“Ship is still following the tracking signals on the drone.”

I checked my watch. “Chase, we leave in ten minutes. I’ll help push off from the dock.”

“Doing a final check of the gages now. We’ll be ready.”

“Mateo, if anything changes with that ship, I want to know immediately. I won’t relax until we’re hundreds of miles north.”

“Understood.”

We were in for a long night.

The minutes slowed to a crawl. When it was time, I headed to the lower deck and removed the dock lines. With the last one removed, I pushed us off from the dock as Chase engaged the engine.

He slowly pulled us away from the marina. Once cleared, he picked up speed, but still kept it slow.

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