Free Perfectly Exposed (Command Unit Book 1) by Gail Faulkner

for that contingency and attempts on her life continued. You were a boy, Jack. No reason to guess his scope included you, son. I underestimated his level of hate. Wouldn’t have kept it from you.”
    Jack regarded Brad’s phone as his father talked. Nothing coming out of it was anything but shit-on-a-stick bad. Steeling himself not to respond to the knowledge that Hailey’s chances of survival had just taken a nose dive, he listened.
    “Before the boat reaches international waters, I recommend going in heavily armed. Could be legit commercial sailors, could be professional pirates.”
    “How well connected is this guy from the grave?” Brad drawled. “Have you seen new tech in his party bag before?”
    “The bastard has financed this operation with zero return for thirty years. First attempt to retrieve our woman was in eighty-four. Bastard died in ninety-two. I watched the lights go out myself. His company and fortune were dismantled at that time. We were aware he had an accomplice by the end of ninety-three but even that went quiet by two thousand four. Someone looking for opportunity this long is a disciple who I had assumed was running out of cash. Level of armament is a crapshoot because it looks like he’s found a money maker. The new tech toys.”
    “I got three possible boats,” Mile stated. “One out of Port Canaveral and one out of Tampa. Both are already underway. A third leaves Jacksonville tonight at 0100.”
    “Pick the vessel likely to get to international waters first. Coast Guard can board the other two,” Smoke suggested from the phone.
    “Thank you, Commander,” Brad said.
    “You’re welcome, Commander,” Smoke acknowledged. “Anything I can do, son. Let me know.”
    “Later,” Jack clipped, eyes on Brad who had addressed his father as an equal. He didn’t have space in his brain to deal with the fact that his father, a rancher in Montana, had always avoided discussing his own service experience. Much like Jack currently did because almost every mission had been classified.
    Nor that his dad’s two lifelong friends, both buddies from military days, also worked and lived on the ranch he’d been raised on. No. No time to deal with the information that strung together in a way that indicated a fuck of a lot more than his father had ever disclosed.
    The room went wired as guys opened maps and got down to planning the operation. Jack watched silently, aware he had little to offer at this stage. His emotional involvement a question no one was asking out loud.
    Controlling the lip-curling snarl, Jack was honest with himself. He had to get his head in the war room. Any other thoughts were unacceptable. She needed his focus. He had to give her that. She deserved it.
    “Let’s move,” Brad clipped. The others had wrapped up what they could do from this location. It was time to move. Thank fuck.
     
    ***
    They had to go with the obvious target. The Sidonya Nadya was registered deep in Eastern Europe and had set sail an hour early according to the freight forwarder’s information. A cargo ship.
    Already it had taken too damn long to gear up and get underway. Jack forced his focus into the constricted timeline of the operation, going over the mission. Mentally working the actions required to get to the objective, every possible contingency, and its necessary response.
    The weather gave them a pirate’s night. High cloud cover, no moon, calm seas. Coming at the ship in its wake, the men stayed low, reducing their silhouettes as they entered the danger zone when it was most likely to be spotted. Pucker factor on this part of a mission was always high but for the experienced operators deadly calm was the only discernible expression on their black-painted faces.
    It wasn’t possible to go silent on a wet, topside approach, they used the huge vessel’s engine noise to mask their own. The inflatable boat zipped into the ship’s massive wake without incident, all eyes were trained on the deck