Page 36 of Kai (Alpha Heroes #13)

Kai

I took the chair that stood between the two men. With the sliders at my back, I could look over the gunwales, and keep a visual on the cove and the reef beyond.

“Your approach speed suggests an underwater propulsion device,” I ventured as the men wolfed down their muscle snacks. “You left them parked at the bottom. Am I right?”

“BB’s newest sea scooter.” Guzman grinned through a mouthful. “Quiet, fast, and smooth.”

“Nice.” I leaned back in my chair. “How did you get past my booby traps?”

“Since we took part in your mission design, we had the advantage of having prior knowledge of the reef and your perimeter defense plan,” Bozeman explained, then bit down on his power bar.

“Plus…” Guzman washed down bar number one with a long sip from his bottle, then knocked his head toward Granite. “He’s got a new BB gadget he wanted to test, even if he had to get his feathers wet to do it.”

Bozeman shook his head and let out a resigned sigh. He lifted his wrist to show me some sort of strapped-on attachment to his Tak.

“Cool as shit,” I said. “What does it do?”

When he pressed a button, it lit up with dots overlaying the underwater topography of the cove. “It detects submerged explosive charges,” he rumbled in his low bass. “That’s how we got around your defenses.”

“Handy.” I approved. “What do I have to do to get myself one of those?”

“Fill out a requisition form and we shall see what comes of it,” Bozeman offered, reminding us he ran a tight ship.

“Granite loves his requisition forms as much as his new gadgets.” Chuckling, Guzman ripped into power bar number three. “He insisted on coming. Sitting on his ass bored him. Apparently, he finds no joy in the amenities of a fine Hawaiian resort. The dude doesn’t know how to have fun.”

I couldn’t disagree with Goof’s assessment, and yet I queried Guzman with a lift of my eyebrows. “And you’re still here because…?”

“Exit instructions.” Guzman drew another swig that drained half his bottle.

My days with Cece were ending. I didn’t have a clear idea of where we stood, if I’d been able to break through her walls, or if she wanted more than sex from me.

I wondered how it would go after we got back to Astor House.

Or how it would not go at all if she stuck to her original beliefs.

Seeing her around and not being able to touch her, kiss her…

It was gonna be one hellish bitch of a situation.

Cece would be safe at Astor House. She would be with her sisters. Returning her home had been my mission all along. I had to set aside my personal feelings and focus on what was best for her and what she wanted for herself.

“Keep talking.” I got up, grabbed a bottle from the table, and, standing behind Goof, undid the watertight zipper and refilled his water bladder.

“We’re here to coordinate your exfil,” Bozeman announced.

“Go on.” I tipped the bottle to get the last of the water out.

“The mercs continue to scour the area,” Guzman reported between feral bites. “They’re still searching at full throttle.”

“Dude.” It was my turn to do some eye-rolling. “I’m monitoring. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Guzman tore open power bar number four, stuffed it whole in his mouth, and crushing it between his teeth, pointed at his lips. “We’re tracking the leader of this crew—”

“Booming Voice,” I put in, moving on to resupply Bozeman’s water. “The asshole with the cowboy hat. We’ve met. Is he a compatriot of yours?”

Guzman made a show of shivering. “Do you think every asshole that wears a Stetson comes from Texas?”

“No, but—”

“The merc you’ve christened Booming Voice is an American,” Bozeman interjected as he finished the last of his power bars. “He goes by several aliases, but his birth name is Jack Levine. He’s a former Marine, dishonorably discharged after a fiasco in the Middle East.”

I crushed the empty bottle between my hands and pitched it into the trashcan. “I hate it when a Marine goes bad.”

“All those skills go to the enemy,” Guzman agreed while I zipped and secured Granite’s water supply.

“As you know, courtesy of Tracker Team, Xao Li has lost several top lieutenants. Levine seems to have shot up through the ranks. Moses has intercepted the NWO’s communication channels on the dark web. ”

“No surprises there.” Mina Moses was Tracker Team’s cyber hunter in chief and one of the world’s best hackers. “What did she find out?”

“Levine is turning out to be a disappointment to his new boss,” Guzman adjusted his bulk to lean back on his chair.

“The merc had an oopsie with a sex worker who turned up dead on the main island. Although the woman specialized in BDSM, she probably didn’t expect to be murdered.

It appears he tortured her for days. They found her cuffed, spread-eagle, and badly cut, but the manner of death was strangulation. ”

“Well, shit.” I muttered, although the news didn’t shock me. “The turd’s a serial killer.”

“The communications Moses intercepted revealed that Li is seriously pissed at Levine, not so much because of the woman’s horrific torture and death, but because the merc was careless and the police got involved. Li doesn’t like extra attention.”

“Word is, Levine won’t live long,” Bozeman added. “Moses reports that online records pertaining to Levine are evaporating as we speak, and that includes his bank accounts.”

“So, Li is getting ready to make Levine disappear,” I concluded, returning to my chair. “The merc is as desperate as he looks. The only way he could escape Li’s rage is to find Cece.”

“That’s the story in a nutshell.” Guzman popped some salt tablets into his mouth and took another swig from his bottle.

“Desperation is a normal condition for Li’s staff.

While you’re here, enjoying life in paradise, we’ve been busy trying to get to Levine.

Dagger is determined to catch him alive, you know, before Li takes him out. ”

“Levine would be an intel haul,” I mused, knuckling my chin. “Given his situation with Li, my guess is that Dagger thinks we could turn the merc.”

“See?” Guzman lifted his hand toward me. “He got it.”

“I like it.” I considered my boss’s plan. “We could use Levine to figure out Li’s whereabouts and complete the intel that has evaded us so far. You were able to tag his boat, so why is Levine still free, motoring all over the islands?”

“Are you calling us slackers?” Guzman pretended to be offended.

“On the contrary.” I smirked. “I know how good you are. So, what’s the problem?”

“The SOB guards himself well wherever he goes.” Goof’s face twisted in disgust. “He’s like Teflon. No one can stick with him long enough to nab him. We know. We’ve tried.”

“I had him in my sights.” I expelled a huff. “More than once.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Guzman crumpled his foils into a ball. “You’ve got impeccable aim and could’ve taken him out. But we want him alive, remember?”

Point Guzman.

“Our analysis suggests that Li will eliminate Levine as he is no longer an asset,” Bozeman reported. “Moses estimates Levine has twenty-four to forty-eight hours left to accomplish his mission before Li issues a kill order.”

“This means he’ll have an accident soon,” Goof said, as if I needed clarification. “He’ll fall out of a window, trip down the stairs, or turn into shark chomp. You know. The sort of accidental death we associate with the NWO and the rogue nations that partake.”

“We estimate they’ll be out of the region in three days,” Bozeman added.

“So,” I concluded. “Exfil in three?”

“Affirmative.” Guzman threw his head back and finished the last of his water. “But whether Levine is dead or alive, we must assume Li will be on the lookout. Satellites, drones, infrared. He’ll keep his tech active. You’ve got two choices.”

“Go,” I said.

“Option Alpha.” He leaned forward and tapped a stout finger on the table.

“We come back in three, hauling the necessary gear, and we do an underwater extraction at oh dark hundred. Our diving incursion tonight lays the groundwork for Alpha. It’s demanding but doable.

You get a deep dive escort, and we take Cece Astor out to rendezvous before we hoof it back to Astor House. ”

Shit. An underwater extraction. At night. A deep dive. Cece was brave, and she’d made progress on the swimming front, but given her fears of being under the water and the challenges of a protracted swim, she might not be able to handle what was likely to be a long, grueling dive.

“What’s my second option?” I asked.

“Option Bravo,” Guzman said. “Bravo entails you solo-sailing Serenity out of here through the reef under the cover of night. Is it even viable?”

“It’s possible.” Even though I hadn’t sailed through the reef in the darkness before, I knew the way better than anyone else.

“We know BB’s cloaking shield loses effectiveness with movement,” Bozeman reminded us. “It has failed once. It could fail again. There’s a risk that Serenity could be traceable to the enemy.”

“Understood,” I said. “What’s our destination?”

“You’ll rendezvous at this set of coordinates.” Guzman un-velcroed a watertight pocket and handed me a paper tucked in a ziplock. “It’s code, so you’ll need to decipher it.”

“No problem.” I had the table memorized. Shaking the bag in my hand, I met Goof’s eyes. “This is so old-style. First, you guys swim here. Then you hand me a paper with some chicken scratch?”

“Lots of interference online and in the airwaves,” Guzman said, confirming my suspicions. “The high-tech war with the NWO is heating up. We’re in their shit, but there’s a chance they’re in ours, too. Intercepts are a genuine threat.”

“Omega didn’t wanna risk giving the NWO a sliver of intel.” Bozeman extracted a small tin from his utility pouch. “He doesn’t want to endanger Cersi Astor’s life.”

I was a hundred percent with Dagger on this one.

“If you choose Bravo, you will need to park at those coordinates exactly on time,” Bozeman warned, smearing the salve on his lips. “No room for error.”

“Right,” I said. “No pressure.”