Page 2 of Deceive Me
“Go to stern, gentlemen,” Deacon murmured into the mic. The passageway at the rear of the boat intersected with Trapper and Inez’s near the cells the senator and his wife were likely still inside, frantic for their daughters. “Confirm.”
None of the urgency he felt filtered through his words. Urgency made you sloppy. They couldn’t rescue the hostages if they were dead.
“Confirmed,” Farley answered. He and his partner peeled off, headed aft. Irish and Deacon headed the opposite, toward the bridge access. Guard after guard felt the final shock of their life before a silent knife sliced their throat or strong hands jerked their heads in the wrong direction without warning. With the boat in a “friendly” port, the men were lax, preoccupied, off their guard. Team Foxtrot took full advantage.
An outside ladder near the bow would allow them to access the bridge. As they neared the area, Irish looked over his shoulder at Deacon, signaling eyes, forward. Trouble ahead. Deacon kept himself in line with his partner, trusting Irish to assess the threat while Deacon watched their flank.
“Moving in.” Farley. Deacon squelched the mic as Irish inched forward. Both men froze when a sudden shout from Farley and Li’s location brought the pounding of footsteps along the deck.
Melting into the shadows, Irish and Deac waited as a contingent of four guards swept past. A fifth, a massive ape of a man with dead eyes, came to an abrupt halt right in front of their position, his head swinging back and forth as he searched for whatever had piqued his instincts. They all had it, the ability to sense a threat, even one they couldn’t see. This man knew danger was at hand, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Then he made the mistake of turning his back to stare out toward the gangway.
In a sudden blur of motion Irish shot forward, crouched low to avoid alerting the target. His knife caught the guard across the backs of both ankles, slicing through the Achilles’ tendons. Deacon caught a glimpse of the guard’s gaping mouth and wide eyes as he fell. He hit the deck on his back, legs useless, but turned just in time to catch Irish’s follow-up attack. The man blocked the downswing of Irish’s knife with a meaty arm but left his torso unprotected. Deacon’s blade swept past his guard and found the man’s right lung a second later.
A strangled scream gurgled from the dying soldier’s mouth. At the same moment, a pain-filled feminine cry filtered down from the bridge. Deacon went cold at the sound. A quick jerk of his knife sliced through the guard’s vocal cords, cutting off any further sound or air. Deacon flicked the blood from his blade as he met Irish’s grim gaze.
Mouth tight, his partner nodded toward the ladder just past the bloody sprawl of the guard’s body. As he turned and stepped over the soldier like so much garbage, Deacon’s earpiece lit up with calls from the other members of their team.
“Two targets located.”
“Bastard—Li!”
“Farley, report!” Trapper.
Then Inez. “Senator and wife mobile. Deac, report.”
A second scream, this one ending in a horrible gurgling sound, came from inside the bridge.
Deacon squelched the mic again in lieu of a verbal report. The men knew what it meant. This close to the bridge, a word spoken at the wrong moment would alert Diako and anyone else he had with him. Deacon tried to ignore the chaos in his ear in favor of completing the mission.
The hatch at the top of the ladder was part glass, the large rectangle illuminated with bright light from within. Irish ducked beneath, taking the entry side. Deacon glanced in quickly as he joined his partner. What he saw seared his eyeballs long after he crouched next to Irish, breathing low but ragged.
One twin was chained to the far bulkhead. The girl’s face was red, tear-ravaged as she yanked on the hook her tether was attached to, so high up that she stretched just to keep her tiptoes on the deck. Diako was forcing the second twin toward a wide table at the back of the room. The child’s desperate eyes had faced the hatch Irish and Deacon were set to enter, searching for rescue, for escape. He heard a soft scream and the impact of skin on the tabletop.
Christ.
Deacon forced the blinding rage away. He needed a clear head to rescue both girls from the bastard. Mentally he assessed positions, assets, limitations, searching for the best way to accomplish their new objective.
He tapped Irish’s shoulder. When his partner’s gaze met his, he signaled silently, giving Irish the plan. With a nod, Irish grasped the hatch handle openhanded, his fingers closing on a silent countdown to entry.
The hatch opened with a slight squeak that was drowned out by Diako’s filthy play-by-play of his actions. Irish crept forward, staying low. Deacon followed, disgust curdling in his stomach in a way he couldn’t detach from as the bastard’s voice became more and more breathless, rough. A countdown to his death, whether he knew it or not. The knowledge allowed Deacon to focus—he wouldn’t fail these girls when they needed him most.
They’d made it halfway down the room when a hoarse shout left Diako’s mouth. Irish surged around the counter that hid them from sight, ready to tackle the fucker to the deck.
The second twin moved faster. Dangling chain now clasped in her fists, she rushed across the room, ready to swing the heavy metal at her sister’s attacker. Despite his preoccupation, Diako saw the threat coming.
Later Deacon tried to remember where the knife had been—not in the hand he could see, planted on the table next to the first twin’s head. The bastard might’ve had it in a sheath on his opposite hip, in his hidden hand, lying on the table. Wherever it was, it was close enough that Diako had time to raise it before the girl reached him. Flying chain and striking knife passed each other in the air, one slapping harmlessly across Diako’s back, the other digging deep into the girl’s belly. Irish shouted from directly behind their target, the angle of his raised gun lining Diako and the girl up, preventing his shot. Deacon jerked to the side, his approach giving him a clear shot of Diako’s sick brain. The silenced spit of the gunshot sounded soft in the chaos, but Diako’s head exploded anyway. Monster and child fell like empty puppets to the deck, their bodies settling mere inches away from each other.
1
“I’m not a fucking nanny, Dain.”
“Not with a mouth like that.”
Elliot shot a deadly look Saint’s way, but her team member shrugged it off. She seriously considered strangling the man with the crucifix he wore around his neck, but it wouldn’t matter. Their boss would simply replace him with someone even more annoying just to get back at Elliot for the inconvenience. Instead she turned her back to the room and sought calm outside the floor-to-ceiling windows providing a perfect view of downtown Atlanta.
Okay, the calm came from avoiding the three amused sets of eyes behind her, but whatever.
The members of her team remained silent, though she could feel their stares burning into her back. Good men. She couldn’t have asked for better. Dain Brannan, or Daddy as they sometimes called him, was the head of their particular team here at JCL Security, the one who took care of the rest of them. Saint, or Iggy—the six-two, massive warrior took personal exception to the use of his full name, Saint Ignatius Solorio—was the joker of the bunch, always saying what everyone was thinking but would never politely admit. He also had an encyclopedic knowledge of weapons that made him invaluable despite the constant temptation to kick his ass. And then there was King—Kingsley Moncrief. No one would guess from looking into the man’s assessing eyes that he’d been raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. Acting as their client and media liaison was a natural role for him, but Elliot had never doubted how lethal King could be in the field.
