Page 46 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Yvonne tapped her finger against the dining room table.

She crossed her restless legs, and glanced at Patrick.

The look he gave her warned that her fear came true.

For twenty minutes, Tyler and Adam had given consistent situation reports.

She’d known exactly where they were and what they dealt with.

But they’d been radio silent for over fifteen minutes. They should have given an update or told her they wouldn’t report in for a while. They hadn’t. Their last update was Adam saying they’d made it to the airport. She’d have heard something if they’d made it onto the plane.

In the living room, Adele paced. She twisted her ponytail around her fingers.

Concern lined her eyes. “Something’s wrong.

” Her voice broke. “I know there is.” She grabbed the wedding band on her finger and held it between her finger and thumb.

After a shaky breath, she wiped her palms on her jeans as if terrified that Adam was hurt or killed.

A real possibility. This life was rough.

A lot of people didn’t survive. Yvonne didn’t have an army.

She had thirty employees for gun deals, and twenty others who worked black-ops missions like this.

And she never sent them all together. Her team had to get in and out without causing much damage to the buildings and civilians around them.

This time she should have sent more than six guys.

But they weren’t fighting a war, they were extracting a target in a location they had to sneak in and out of.

According to what she’d heard on the radio, that hadn’t worked.

Their exfil wasn’t clean, and Viktor’s people chased them to the airport. But they had made it to the airport.

Amir shifted behind her chair and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Maybe something happened to the plane.”

Yvonne nodded. That’s what she figured, though refused to voice.

The plane might have been destroyed, but what about the targets?

Adam? Tyler? Had any of them survived? She hoped that they had.

The odds were slim, though. Adele seemed to think Adam was gone.

As his wife, did she have that deep of a bond with him to know that?

Maybe. But that didn’t mean that Tyler and their targets were dead, too.

With a huff, Patrick sat back in his chair, his fingers never leaving his computer. “I’ve got nothing from my satellite search. I can’t find them.” He scratched his head. “I thought maybe they headed to Vukovar, but their vehicles didn’t enter the city.”

“They’re gone then.” Adele’s voice held a tremble.

Gage shifted against the living room wall, meeting Yvonne’s gaze.

“I told you that you shouldn’t have trusted Reid.

” He still held the same opinion of the Australian, despite their talk.

Maybe if he could see that Tyler fought as hard, if not harder, than the rest of them, he’d change his mind.

Doubt had kept Yvonne from sending Gage instead of Adam.

Amir pulled out the chair beside Yvonne. “We should radio them.”

She shook her head. “If they’re in a tight spot, that might get them caught.”

“Tyler had his radio connected to an earpiece. No one will hear us except him,” Paul shifted on the couch. “But if he speaks, someone might.”

Right. She’d forgotten. But Adam didn’t because he was half-deaf in one ear. If he was alive, it might be a mistake.

“I…can’t.” Yvonne rested her hand over the radio on the table. The pe ople out in the field had to make contact first. Doing something different from that might get them killed. She had to have more confidence in her men. Adam did this stuff before. Tyler’s records showed he had too.

“Just do it.” Adele folded her arms.

“Are you sure?” Yvonne asked. The Israeli woman had to know that it could put her husband in more danger.

Adele nodded. “Yes, if Adam is alive, he’ll have found a safe location. It’ll be fine.” She swallowed hard. Tears glistened in her eyes.

With a nod, Yvonne held the radio up. “Team, I need a sitrep.” Silence greeted her words. She fisted her hand on her lap and waited. Even after a minute, no response came. “Tyler, Adam, I need a sitrep.”

Static cracked through the line.

Patrick sat straighter in his seat, his eyes on the radio.

Yvonne tried again. “If you’re there, I need a sitrep.”

The roar of an engine came from the radio, then a voice. “The exfil plan failed. The plane’s destroyed. Team’s gone.” Tyler said something inaudible before continuing. “The package is with me.”

Yvonne held in a sigh of relief. Tyler lived. The package was secure, temporarily at least. But the team had died, and he and their targets were still in danger.

Adele choked on a sob.

“What about Adam?” Yvonne rested her arms on the table.

After a few seconds, Tyler responded, “I tried to save him. There was nothing I could do.”

A door slammed shut as Adele closed herself off in her and Adam’s room. She’d be in there for a while. Even though she’d known it, hearing it couldn’t have been easy.

“Alright.” Yvonne took a breath to calm the anxiety creeping up on her. “Where are you now?”

“Vukovar. Just passed the city limits.”

The city? “The civilians will get hurt!” A stupid move on his part.

He should have found a way to hide out in the forest near the airport.

They could have moved on foot to avoid people while they waited for a new plane.

The temperatures remained mild this part of the year so they wouldn’t freeze to death .

“I’m not about to hide in a bloody forest with a woman and an eight-year-old,” Tyler snapped. “We’ll find a place to hide in the city. Should be easy enough until morning.”

She sighed. “Fine. Fine.” He was right. It was midnight. People wouldn’t be out and about in the city. She had six hours to find a way to get him and the targets. “I’ll get a plane out there.”

“I’d rethink that. The last one got blown up by an RPG.”

Paul let out a whistle. “How close were they?”

Yvonne shook her head. They must have been pretty close since Adam radioed they had reached the plane. Maybe the explosion killed him. She shifted in her chair. “We can’t use a boat. If we use vehicles, they’ll chase us all the way. It is an eight-hour drive.”

“We have limited time, Von.” His voice broke with the static. “Viktor had an army of men at his fortress. I took out thirty, maybe. He’s got a lot left. Our hiding spots will be limited when people start coming into work.”

“I know.” Which meant she needed to get on a plan immediately. “Just find a safe place to hide. I’ll get you out of there. I promise.”

“Copy. I’m going radio silent for a while.”

She’d rather he didn’t, but what was she supposed to do?

He couldn’t tell their location over the radio and unless something went wrong, she didn’t need an update.

“Alright. I’ll call you when I have a plan.

” After hearing his confirmation that he heard, she set the radio on the table.

A sigh escaped her. The exfil plan had failed, and other than sending another plane out there, she had no idea what to do.

Pushing away from the table, she turned to her team. “We have six hours. We need a plan to get our targets out of there.”

Amir cleared his throat. “Uh, we’ll have to send more guys out there, and we don’t have that many available.”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

He was right. They had Paul and Gage here—she wouldn’t count Adele—and four guys on their way to Vukovar that she’d sent out that way a few hours ago as a precaution.

She rested a hand on the back of a dining room chair.

“Just get to work. We have to figure this out.”

June 9

12:23 a.m., Vukovar, Croatia

Tyler checked the mirror as he guided the SUV through the neighborhood at the edge of the city. Simple homes lined the road and stood at the corner of every intersection. The houses weren’t high-end, given they had limestone walls common in Croatia, but he doubted the residents cared.

The dim light behind the vehicle revealed that their pursuers lagged. Maybe Adam had damaged the vehicle earlier. Or perhaps they’d exhausted their supply of ammunition. The latter was more likely since the rain of bullets on the vehicle had ceased.

Elara shifted in the passenger seat. Her hand gripped the console. She turned to look behind them. “They’re slowing down.”

“Yeah.” Tyler stretched his jaw. That choice of action didn’t make sense.

Sure, they’d run out of bullets, but if they got too far behind, they’d lose track of Elara and her son.

Maybe they’d run out of gas? Unless they had a guaranteed way of tracking them down.

He glanced at the backpack on the seat next to Rian. “We need to toss that bag.”

Elara frowned. “What?” She glanced at the bag, then him.

“I’m not gonna have them tracking us. We need to lose anything you had on or with you there.” That included their clothes, which meant he’d have to find a store to buy them new ones. But they definitely needed to ditch that bag.

“No. No. There’s no tracker in there.”

He glanced at her. “You don’t know that.”

“No one has touched the backpack except me and Rian. I’m not throwing it away.”

“Is its contents worth your life?” The answer to that was a hard no.

“It changed my life. I’m not leaving it.” She glared at him.

He gave a disbelieving snort. Great. So now she wouldn’t let go of a bloody bag. He swiped a hand over his face. “Fine.” He’d toss it as soon as he got it away from her. Maybe she thought that it was okay, but he doubted it. Viktor’s men wouldn’t back off unless they knew exactly where Elara was.

“Thank you.” She sighed .