Page 57 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
A voice on the other end answered in dry, professional static. Blake’s jaw tightened. He nodded as if the reply were visible. “Copy,” he said, louder, then tapped to mute.
Isobel watched him, fingers pressed white into prayer hands. The word package slid through her head like something sterile and small—an evidence bundle, a drive, a single tin—yet it had swallowed her world. She could feel Rone’s weight beside her, the set of his shoulders tight as wire. The men around them checked weapons in near-silent choreography: magazine snaps, soft zip of shoulder straps, breath held like a prayer.
Blake folded the phone, face unlit by anything but the glow from the island. He looked up and met each of them in turn. “That’s the green light,” he said. “They’ll be standing by for the transfer on the north bay. We’re not coming in the obvious way.”
Rone’s answer was a hard nod. “We’ll take the interior. Least accessible. Least watched.” He dipped his chin at the marsh. “Through the lake, then on foot to the south side of the ranger station. Minimal footprint. Move fast. Move silent.”
Blake tapped a point on the chart he’d stowed beneath his knee, the paper whispering like a secret. “The lake is choked, shallow in parts, but the alligator traffic keeps heavy patrols away. If they post men, they won’t be comfortable here—no heavy boots, no routine. We duck in the reeds, skirt the west flank, hit the south entrance by the old boardwalk. From there, my contact will move you both in military boxes—standard transfer protocol. From the south room to the staging crates, then north-side evac by boat. It’s tight. It’s clean. It’s the only way.”
Isobel’s throat worked. “Military boxes?” The term sounded dumb and clinical, and for a second, she imagined crates with slatted lids and men in uniforms packing human bodies like mail. Her pulse jumped at the image. “You’ll—pack us into containers?”
“We’ll move you in protected transit,” Blake corrected, voice level. “Covers, padding, monitored—safe enough to get you to the north bay staging point without an open trail that could be picked up by a scout. There is where we’ll be with the full unit, and I’ll be able to watch to see that he moves to report you.”
Rone’s hand found hers and squeezed, a quick, answering anchor. “It’s not ideal,” he said low.
“But getting you seen walking out of the ranger station is exactly what Laurel Tide wants. The boxes keep you off the surface. The transfer’s quick—less than five minutes at the docking point. They have eyes; we don’t give them the sight,” Blake checked his watch.
A man from Blake’s team leaned forward, eyes like dark coins. “We’ll stagger the moves. First pair in, signal. Second pair, follow. We’ll burn a false approach on the east ridge to draw any attention away. If anyone spots movement, we peel.”
Isobel swallowed and let the cold settle in. The plan felt brutal, inverted; it made her small and instrumental in a way that pressed at her gut. But beneath that pressure, something else moved—faith, raw and clear. If this was the only way to get to her father and Echo, she wanted the largest, most dangerous part of it. She would rather be boxed and carried than left to wait.
“Are you sure your people can keep that silent?” Rone asked, voice a rasp of concern.
Blake’s jaw set. “We’ll have someone monitoring the north ridge. They go dark once you’re on the dock. That’s why it has to be fast. We have a ten-minute window. If you’re not on the crates and underway, the transfer aborts. You understand the risks.”
Isobel looked at him—really looked—with the kind of clarity that can burn through pretense. “I understand,” she said. Thewords were a promise and an accusation. “We don’t get a second chance.”
Blake’s men tightened their kit. He folded the chart, slid it back into its oilskin, and handed it to the man to his right. “No chatter. No lights. Keep radios on short, encrypted bursts only. Eyes up on the far shore. If anything looks off, abort and peel. We don’t rescue into an ambush.”
Rone’s jaw worked, and then he nodded once, the motion final. He let go of Isobel’s hand to check the line on the bow, set the throttle for the quietest crawl toward the reeds. The skiff moved like a dark animal, nose skimming the water, until the island’s silhouette blurred into a darker black.
Rone snuggedIsobel tighter against him. He had regrets, too many, especially when he savored the contact of her by his side when he should be condemning himself for letting this get so far.
He fought to find another way because, despite a decade-long friendship of a brother who he would’ve died for, people changed over the years. What if Blake had been radicalized, soured on a government that hadn’t been good to him? Passed him over for promotions. Men had turned on friends and family for less.
The south entrance to Pelican Bay opened like a slit in a scar—narrow, tidal, full of things that scraped if you didn’t know how to lift your weight.
“Transfer here,” Blake called, low enough to die against the wind. He pointed with two fingers to a sliver of darker water sliding between mangroves. “Rowboats. No wake. No profile.”
Rowboats. Perfect. Rone glanced at Isobel—the way she hugged her arms to her chest, chilled from the night Decemberdamp air, the stubborn, steady lift of her chin—and then scanned the margins. No lights. No wakes. On the western horizon, the flat black of the Gulf pressed down like a lid. If there were rifles out there, he couldn’t see the glint. That was the point.
“If I could figure out another way…”
Isobel ran her hand down his jawline making him lean into her further. She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “There’s no other way. And if I don’t make it out, it wasn’t your fault.”
Rone took her hand to hold onto her one more second.
Blake’s men worked quiet. The first inflatable swung in on a short painter. The second bumped the boat’s stern like a dog nosing a knee. Rone took the middle of the three—habit, control, the place where you could reach front or rear if things went wrong. He handed Isobel down, kept a hand at her elbow just long enough to feel how cold she was under the heat of her gaze. She stepped sure and small, crouched when the inflatable rolled, absorbed it like she’d been doing this all her life. Of course, she hadn’t. Some people learned balance by never being given the luxury of steady ground.
Blake dropped in last, the transom sagging briefly under his weight, then coming back. He passed a pair of night-vision goggles across, then another. Rone took one set and clipped it around his neck. Isobel shook her head when Blake extended a third.
“I’ll use your eyes,” she whispered to Rone. He didn’t like it, didn’t like any plan that required her to need him for literal sight. He slipped the strap over his forehead, pushed the unit up until it pressed against his hairline.
“South cut,” Blake said, quiet, the tone of a man who liked giving orders better than he liked oxygen. “We ride it east to the creek, push into the lake. Ranger station is north side. Laurel’steam has eyes to the west—we stay out of their sightlines. No talking unless it’s life or death. Paddle blades low.”
He didn’t say snipers. He didn’t have to. The word sat on Rone’s tongue anyway, metallic, bitter.
They pushed off. The rope hissed through Rone’s hands, rough with salt crust. The dinghy shivered once and then the bay took them. The mangroves closed overhead in places, their roots a tangle of claws drinking the tidal mud. The smell changed—open Gulf salt muted to tannin, the sweet, rank breath of a place that kept secrets under a film of water.
