Page 94 of Storm and Tempest
But then the door opened, and his objection was swallowed up by the appearance of Hollace, who Jax had met briefly in France, and a female operative with blond hair and a weddingband on her left hand. Hollace was ex-military and had a command presence that filled the room. “Sir?”
Mr. Jonas nodded. “Go ahead.”
“We performed a thorough search of the location Mr. Jaxton gave us and walked through the entire shipyard. It appears to be the location from the video showing Kenna trying to escape them, but if there was ever any evidence she was there, it’s gone now. They cleared out.”
Jax slumped into a seat.
It was for the best that they hadn’t taken him with them, if his presence was only going to enable the FBI to find him and arrest him for a murder he hadn’t committed. But Jax still would’ve wanted to go—to stand in a place where Kenna had been and see for himself what was there.
Hollace continued, “We took a look at the security archive and found buried files that Maizie and Hazel managed to access. They found a day several weeks back where there was unusual activity in the middle of the night. A helicopter landed in the parking lot and took off twenty minutes later. We think Kenna was transported away from there.”
“And now she could be anywhere.” Jax ran his hands down his face, trying to tamp down the frustrated anger swelling up in him.
“Do you want me to tell you that helicopters don’t have that much range?” Hollace paused. “That puts the search parameters at a restricted mileage.”
Jax lowered his hands, not looking at anyone else. “And if they landed at an airport and put her on a plane? Like I said, she could be anywhere.”
“They brought her up here. It wasn’t the final destination. Accept that we’re at least another step closer to her.”
“I’ve been another step closer to her for months, and I’m not there yet. Eventually I’ll run out of road.”
His dad turned to him. The old man had been quiet so far and kept to himself. Now he said, “You can’t lose hope. That’s what they want.”
“I don’t need any of you to tell me how to feel. I need you to find my wife.”
Preston stood, moving to the front of the room while Mr. Jonas sat to the side. “That’s why I bought a house in Seattle.”
Jax frowned. “You had that house way before Kenna was taken hostage, so don’t try to convince me it was so you could be up here to find her.”
“Right.” Preston nodded. “What I meant to say is thatDominatusis why I moved up here.” He looked around. “Each of you is here because we’ve cleared you sufficiently to include you in this. But MSI and I have been working together for years to try and identify how to dismantleDominatusin a way that will finally put a stop to them.” His attention settled on Amara and Bruce. “We know you’ve tried, and had some success, but our goal is to find their main locations and hit a few simultaneously. Knock them back a step.”
“Great.” Jax figured Kenna might be at one.
“We can’t do that if destroying a facility gets everyone inside killed. Either because they see us coming and execute all personnel, or because we level the place.” Preston leveled a steady gaze on him. “So we need to find Kenna and get her out, which means the plan is on hold.”
Because they had the armaments to destroy facilities.
“You know where they are?” Ramon asked the question that had been on the tip of Jax’s tongue.
“We’re in the process of narrowing it down. What we know at the moment is thatDominatushas a presence in both Alaska and British Columbia. There are some out of the way places, islands, and isolated communities between. We believe they have a facility, or several, in the area.”
Right. That was an “area” that covered hundreds of thousands of square miles. Not an easy task to search without even knowing what to look for.
Preston turned to Mr. Jonas, who sat in front of a laptop. “Go ahead.” The screen on the wall flickered on, showing an image of an island covered mostly with trees. “This is a location we are currently investigating, a protected island populated with Indigenous Alaskans. Their tribe is believed to have been undisturbed for centuries, but our satellite scans show evidence there is a massive power plant on the island.”
Jax said, “Why haven’t you gone in yet?”
“Our goal was to get a man on the inside in order to gather intelligence.” Preston looked a little disappointed, so Jax figured it failed.
Hollace glanced at Jax. “You know as well as anyone that going in a situation totally blind is nothing better than a suicide mission.”
Preston said, “So we can’t get a man in. And we can’t destroy it if there’s a chance Kenna is there.”
“I’ll go,” Jax said. He was here to find her. Why sit around and wait for evidence?
“It’s a one-in-a-thousand shot.” Preston hesitated, looking at Jax. “We have no idea that’s where she is.”
“I’m done doing nothing.”
