Page 35 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Twenty-Five

E arl Jonas stood at one end of the huge conference room. “This presents a considerable problem.”

Jax wasn’t so convinced. “I don’t show my face in public until Kenna is found. Problem solved.” He pushed off the wall, antsy to get this thing going.

They’d left the RV at the warehouse but brought Jolene. She was now the office mascot at the MSI facility in Seattle. Though, here they didn’t call it Miami Security International. The doors had another far more generic name on them, and the place had no online presence.

Bear and a couple of his teammates were absent.

They’d captured one of the people that attacked the warehouse and had the guy in an interrogation room.

Jax was surprised that Amara and Bruce had opted to join the meeting.

Then again, Amara had spent most of it talking quietly to Zeyla and earning heated looks from Ramon.

Maizie had been distracted by the walkthrough of the tech lab and decided to stay there after being introduced to the office technician—a tall and stocky dark-haired woman with a pixie cut that included shaved sides and three cut-in stripes above each ear.

It hadn’t hurt that Earl Jonas had given her carte blanche access to the MSI system, and the technician, Hazel, had taken a shine to her.

That, more than anything, told him these people didn’t have anything to hide.

Amara was the one that concerned him. Especially considering the look she’d given Maizie at the warehouse.

Preston said, “Speaking as someone who has been arrested for murder and spent years in prison, it’s worse when you didn’t do it.”

Someone said, “I bet the payday is better, though.”

“I don’t want to find out.” Jax shifted his weight and folded his arms. “It doesn’t matter if the FBI is gunning for my arrest. I didn’t kill Elliot Adams and I didn’t order the hit.

Any proof they come up with is going to be fabricated.

So all we’ve got to do is prove them wrong, starting with the GPS location of my phone, and the fact I’ve contacted no one using it to order a hit. ”

“We’ve got more important priorities.” Ramon leaned his chair back, tipping it onto the two back legs.

“Exactly.” Not that Jax wasn’t worried, or didn’t think he could end up with a serious fight on his hands if he was forced to prove his innocence.

It’s just that he didn’t consider it more important than finding Kenna.

“It’s all just more of a distraction. Ways for them to slow us down, get us hung up and occupied by nuisances rather than focused on finding her. ”

“That’s why I sent a couple of my guys to the shipyard.” Jonas leaned on his cane. “They should be back soon.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

“You can’t be seen in public. We know what we’re doing.”

Jax clenched his back teeth.

Ramon and Zeyla both glanced at him.

“What about the man you have in custody?” Jax asked.

“So far he hasn’t been cooperative.”

Ramon said, “I’m surprised they don’t have cyanide capsules in their teeth for just such an occasion.”

“It’s not unheard of,” Zeyla said. “But if you screw up or get caught, you’re cut loose. It won’t be long before they send someone to take him out.” She looked from Jax to Mr. Jonas. “They’ll dispatch an operative to kill him.”

One of the MSI guys said, “Do they have tracking devices on them?”

Zeyla looked distressed. “Even if this one doesn’t, it won’t be long before they find him. Just like they found Samuel Chistane.”

Ramon tipped his chair back down. “They’re probably kicking themselves they didn’t take out Elliot then. Or at the bank.”

Jax had thought about that a whole lot during the hours of driving, talking it through with Zeyla while Ramon slept.

They’d concluded that Special Agent Herron had to be more than just someone they were using for their ends.

She came across as more deeply embedded than just being coerced into losing evidence or giving orders that suited them.

“We know who they’re targeting,” Jax said. “So it’s worth checking in with everyone in this building.”

“Like a lie detector test?” Preston asked. “Because just asking the question doesn’t mean you’re going to get the truth. These people are under duress.”

“A lie detector test sounds like a great idea,” Amara said. “I’m sure they have tech that can function as one. Everyone should be questioned.”

Jax shrugged. “Or that’s just more distraction, and we should go.”

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 wedding band 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 that Dominatus is 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 dismantle Dominatus in 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 that Dominatus has 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.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ramon said. “Watch your back.”

“We have more images, but not much.” Jonas clicked the mousepad, and the view changed to a shot of the shore that had to have been taken from a boat.

Zeyla let out a noise and jumped up from her chair, which toppled over behind her.

Amara shot up beside her. “What is it?”

“I’ve been there. I know I have.” Zeyla gasped. “I remember it.”

The room electrified. Preston looked at Jonas with a whole lot of hope in his expression.

Ramon dropped his chair back down again and stood.

Even Bruce huddled in. The MSI people stayed back, letting her have those she was close to around her.

But Jax could see in their expressions, that this meant a great deal to them.

“Those places are impenetrable,” Amara said to Preston. “You’d never get someone inside without them being discovered. But I can get you in.”

“I’d like to hear about your daughter’s experience.” Preston folded his arms. “If she’d like to share. Zeyla is the first person we’ve met who has come out of one of these places and lived to tell about it.”

Ramon glanced at Jax.

Preston winced. “I’m sorry. That isn’t going to happen to Kenna. We are going to get her back.”

“I didn’t get this far by believing I’ll never get her back, or by quitting.” Jax touched Zeyla’s shoulder. “What do you remember?”

“Not much.” She winced and shook her head. “It’s foggy. I’m pretty sure I was drugged at the time. I remember that tree line, though. And wind. It was freezing. I was shivering, and I could feel the spray of the ocean on me.”

“That’s really good,” Hollace said, his voice soothing. “Do you remember any buildings?”

She closed her eyes. “Maybe a tunnel? There were lights flashing overhead.”

Jax said, “You were moving, being pushed like on a gurney. The lights overhead would seem like they were flashing.”

She nodded, then opened her eyes and looked at him. “I don’t even know when it was, or how old I was, or anything.”

If they’d done something to her, she didn’t remember. “That could be a good thing. Better than the memories.”

“They’ve taken too much from me. How could there be more that I don’t even remember?” Tears filled her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He had to clear his throat. “I know someone who has been through too much as well, and she’s the kind of person who could walk you through how to move on. How to build a life.”

“We’re going there tonight,” Ramon said, only looking at Jax. “If Kenna is there, we’ll get her back.”

Jax agreed that it would be just the two of them. “Let’s do it.”

“This island,” Preston said, “is one of a half dozen we’ve got under watch by the satellite. And we only get a picture once every few hours. You’ll be going in blind.”

Jonas flicked through more images, and Zeyla sank into a chair.

“I know how to find Kenna,” Amara said.

Bruce reached up and scratched his jaw. “I told you they won’t go for it.”

Amara shot him a look. “They need someone inside. I can do it.”

“I’m not going back.” Zeyla spun to her mother. “I’m not just going to walk into one of their facilities and submit to their—” Her voice broke.

“Not you,” Amara cut in, avoiding eye contact. “Maizie.”

Ramon exploded. “Are you kidding?! No one is going to walk in there. Especially not Maizie.”

“Except you and Jax. Because you’re big strong men,” Amara taunted. “And you can protect yourselves.”

“You aren’t taking Maizie.” Jax folded his arms across his chest.

His father said, “That’s right. We safeguard the people under our protection. We don’t send them into the lion’s den.”

“She’s an adult. At least she was the last time I checked.” Amara wasn’t backing down. “She’s also the innocent who can get us in if we pretend like we’re handing her over.”

Jax looked at Bruce. “Care to talk some sense into her?”

Bruce shook his head.

Zeyla and Amara looked at him with identical expressions. Amara said, “Because he’s the voice of reason and I’m an irrational woman, is that it?”

Jax sighed. “Maizie stays where she’s protected. No exceptions.”

“Maybe you should ask her why Dominatus doesn’t seem the least bit interested in her.” Amara lifted her chin. “Ask her why she’s untouchable.”

“This is ridiculous.” Jax shook his head. “Whatever game you’re playing, Amara, I’m not interested. Maizie isn’t going into one of their facilities, no matter how you goad us into agreeing with you.”

He knew she’d been tested years ago, as a child.

The man who’d held her had taken her to a house in England where she’d been assessed.

Whatever their criteria, she hadn’t met it.

That was the simple reason why Dominatus didn’t want her as one of their captives, the ones kept to give birth to a child they augmented in a lab.

“You don’t know anything about her,” he added.

Zeyla turned to her mother. “You can’t take Maizie in there just to get intel.”

Amara backed off and sat down. Still, her words echoed in his head. She’d successfully planted a seed of doubt, and he wasn’t sure how to uproot it. There was a chance Kenna was out there on an island in Alaska. That was all he knew.

And he was finally going to find her.