Keane E-Book

Mayer Dale

• Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Heading out on a last-ditch rescue mission to Puget Sound one day after two women go overboard in a sailing accident isn’t exactly what he’d expected …

But Keane is nothing if not adaptable. He can only hope the two women are alive and doing everything they can to stay that way. Hearing from the local coast guard that more may be involved than just a rescue mission, he and his partner load up and head out to search the waters around the smaller islands off the coast. They have the GPS of the missing women’s last-known location, but storms could have sent them anywhere …

Lost, alone—except for her best friend, who’s unconscious with a head wound—Sandrine wakes up in a small shelter to find they are locked in. When the door is finally opened, an armed stranger dressed in fatigues dumps a small amount of food and says they are on their own.

Finding the women was one thing, keeping them safe something else again. More is going on in this small island that any of them were expecting … or had planned for …

 

Leseprobe

Keane

The Mavericks, Book 9

Dale Mayer

Books in This Series:

Kerrick, Book 1

Griffin, Book 2

Jax, Book 3

Beau, Book 4

Asher, Book 5

Ryker, Book 6

Miles, Book 7

Nico, Book 8

Keane, Book 9

Lennox, Book 10

Gavin, Book 11

Shane, Book 12

Diesel, Book 13

Jerricho, Book 14

Killian, Book 15

Hatch, Book 16

Corbin, Book 17

Aiden, Book 18

The Mavericks, Books 1–2

The Mavericks, Books 3–4

The Mavericks, Books 5–6

The Mavericks, Books 7–8

The Mavericks, Books 9–10

The Mavericks, Books 11–12

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About This Book

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

About Lennox

Author’s Note

Complimentary Download

About the Author

Copyright Page

About This Book

What happens when the very men—trained to make the hard decisions—come up against the rules and regulations that hold them back from doing what needs to be done? They either stay and work within the constraints given to them or they walk away. Only now, for a select few, they have another option:

The Mavericks. A covert black ops team that steps up and break all the rules … but gets the job done.

Welcome to a new military romance series by USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series where you meet new friends and just might get to meet old ones too in this raw and compelling look at the men who keep us safe every day from the darkness where they operate—and live—in the shadows … until someone special helps them step into the light.

Heading out on a last-ditch rescue mission to Puget Sound one day after two women go overboard in a sailing accident isn’t exactly what he’d expected …

But Keane is nothing if not adaptable. He can only hope the two women are alive and doing everything they can to stay that way. Hearing from the local coast guard that more may be involved than just a rescue mission, he and his partner load up and head out to search the waters around the smaller islands off the coast. They have the GPS of the missing women’s last-known location, but storms could have sent them anywhere …

Lost, alone—except for her best friend, who’s unconscious with a head wound—Sandrine wakes up in a small shelter to find they are locked in. When the door is finally opened, an armed stranger dressed in fatigues dumps a small amount of food and says they are on their own.

Finding the women was one thing, keeping them safe something else again. More is going on in this small island that any of them were expecting … or had planned for …

Sign up to be notified of all Dale’s releaseshere!

Chapter 1

Aweek later, Keane Lytton walked down Fisherman’s Wharf in Seattle. The place was jam-packed with people, and he wondered what the hell he was doing here. Surely there was a better place for a meeting. Of course, if you want to get lost in a crowd, this was the place to be. It was overcast with a threat of rain. Still, he couldn’t, for the life of him, imagine why he was here. But somebody with greater wisdom had decided this, and so a meetup was needed. He walked down the pier where he was expected, and, as he found the spot, he sat and turned his back on the crowd behind him.

Charlotte and Nico had holed up in Charlotte’s house for the last few days, and Keane had been more than happy to take a break. He was eager to join the Mavericks with his own mission to head up and had listened to stories about many other ops from the others who had gone before him. He was okay with that. He was just waiting for it to happen.

When a hand landed on his shoulder, he turned in surprise and looked up to see Lennox staring at him. Keane’s eyebrows shot up. “Man, am I glad to see you.”

“Good,” Lennox said. “Are you willing to work with me too?” He held up an envelope. “We’ve got orders.”

Keane and Lennox sat on the side of the wharf, while the noise of the crowd around them completely faded away. Keane said, “I was given very little information on it.”

“That’s because very little is to be had,” Lennox admitted. “I’ve never been on a mission with less information.”

“So, what do we know?”

“A group of people went out for a day of sailing. Two of them were washed overboard.”

“And the coast guard didn’t find them?” Keane asked, staring at Lennox in surprise. “Not terribly unusual, I suppose, given the size of the search area.”

Lennox replied, “The coast guard and private yachts haven’t seen any sign of them.”

“The currents, depending on where they were at the time, could have taken the bodies to any number of places.”

“Well, they went missing in Puget Sound,” Lennox said.

“Seriously? Puget Sound is interconnected to multiple waterways and basins, not to mention the Pacific Ocean. The currents can change and can run really deep,” Keane said. “A search like that involves any number of issues. They may never be found.”

“Exactly,” Lennox said. “In this case a special request has been made for us to look for them.”

Keane gazed at the long lampposts that dotted the pier. “Are you serious?”

Lennox gave him half a grin. “Never more so.”

“What? We’re in the business of looking for bodies now?” he asked incredulously. “I was expecting to go up against a serial killer or work in the midst of a civil war in a dictator-ruled country or God-only-knows-what, but you’re saying my mission is to look for two bodies?” Turning, Keane stared at the water. “Not only that, it’s almost impossible to succeed at a job like this.”

“Only a couple reasons explain why we’re doing this,” Lennox said, lowering his voice.

“Of course,” Keane said. “It’s got to be the daughter or niece or nephew to somebody pretty high up the line.”

“An admiral,” Lennox said. “His daughter and her friend.”

“Has he been looking personally?”

“No. He’s out on the Baltic Sea, but he’s been calling in every favor he could.”

“And so a special black-ops mission team of two is to go out into Puget Sound, and possibly beyond into the Pacific Ocean, and look for them?”

“Yes,” Lennox replied.

Just then Keane’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see Nico was calling. Keane lifted the phone to his ear. “Hope you have a better explanation as to why I’m supposed to look for two bodies,” Keane snapped.

“So Lennox already told you about the admiral’s daughter?”

“Absolutely, but what does this have to do with us? What’s wrong with search and rescue, the coast guard or a private recovery company?”

“Because,” he said, “they went missing from the same area where two other people went missing just one week ago. Both pairs somewhere in the same area. Plus, we received a distress call from one of those first two who went missing, saying they’d been captured.”

Chapter 2

Keane slowly straightened. “Captured?”

“Yes,” Nico said briskly. “Bodies showed up a few days later, both shot. So we don’t know exactly what the hell we’ve got going on here.”

“What islands are around their last-known locations? How about any permanent houseboats? Hell, what about speedboats passing through here? Just what the hell is going on?”

“We don’t know,” Nico said. “But once the admiral heard about his daughter, he asked for a team to be brought in.”

“Of course he did,” Keane said, staring at the water in front of them. “Puget Sound is full of islands. Most of them uninhabited. About 99 percent I would say,” he said.

“That we know of,” Nico corrected. “The fact of the matter is, we have narrowed it down to the closest four islands, where we know these latest two women were washed off the boat.”

“Washed off in a storm or helped off?” Keane asked.

“Well, that’s one of the questions. Two men were on the boat with them—they both survived,” he said. They’re not saying much though. Only that a really bad storm came, and the women were washed overboard.”

“Life jackets?”

“Yes.”

“And how long ago?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“Well, if they’re still in the water, they’re dead,” Keane snapped. “Hypothermia would have set in very quickly, and it doesn’t matter what kind of life jacket they’ve got on. It won’t keep them afloat for all that long, particularly if they’re dead.”

“We all know that, including the admiral. Especially the admiral. But, if the slightest chance remains that his daughter is alive out there, he wants to exhaust every avenue. The fact that we had a distress call after the prior incident, saying that first couple were captured, expands the potential scenarios.”

“And makes no sense at all. It’s not like we have pirates here,” Keane said, interested in spite of himself. “I guess I could do a whole lot worse than spending a few days on a boat looking for someone.”

“Less on a boat, more on the islands,” Nico said. “Another thing I can tell you is that some research is going on in that area.”

“What kind of research?” Keane asked, looking at Lennox, who was listening in on the call.

“Top secret,” Nico replied.

“So, a top secret installation is on one of these freaking islands, near where two people disappeared a week ago and two more disappeared yesterday morning. Those most recent two are probably in the ocean, but, because of this installation and because of the distress call, you’re afraid it may be something far more sinister.”

“Exactly,” Nico said. I can’t give you too many details because we just don’t have them. Apparently this research center involves a couple other countries, as well.”

“Don’t tell me—Russia, China, or both?”

“No, not necessarily. It’s somehow in conjunction with Japan.”

“Well, we are allies.”

“They’re not saying that the installation itself is in the wrong hands or that it’s operating illegally,” Nico continued. “Or that it even has anything to do with these missing people,” he said. “The other thing is that this installation isn’t manned all the time. It’s a bunch of machines, run by computer mostly.”

“What’s it tracking?”

“Something to do with weather patterns,” he said. “They are testing the technology. Technicians go to the island and check on it every once in a while.”

“So, like seismologists and the earthquake points, they monitor up and down the coast? They pull up the data, copy over the readings and then reset it?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“So, does it deal with earthquakes too?”

“I think they’re probably taking readings of everything, but I don’t really know,” Nico answered. “They’re mostly concerned about tsunamis, I believe, so earthquakes are likely a big part of it.”

“Well, Japan would be interested in that, I suppose. Are tsunamis a big issue around here?”

“These islands are on the outside of Puget Sound, so they’d be the first ones to get hit, so maybe. But again, no people are there. Just equipment.”

“So you say,” Keane said. “What we really don’t know is if that island for the top secret research is used secretly for something else or if some crazies are out there, killing people. Really, logic doesn’t always apply to every situation.”

“True enough,” Nico said cheerfully. “But you’ll have as much assistance as you want.”

“Well, for a job like this, we can hardly use a huge team. We’ll draw way too much attention as we search those islands.”

“Exactly. We do have the coast guard. They’ll take you out to the area where these two women recently disappeared and show you where the other two disappeared earlier.”

“Do we have a location for that distress call?”

“We do, and it’s not the same exact location where these four people disappeared from,” Nico said. “I’ll send you all the data we have.”

“So, we’re not up against anything other than Mother Nature potentially or some psycho?”

“We don’t know what we’re up against,” Nico said. “So don’t make any assumptions that would close off any possibility.”

“Great,” Keane said under his breath. He looked at Lennox. “Sounds like we’re heading out today on a cruiser.”

“The coast guard will meet you in two hours and twenty minutes at the GPS location where the women went overboard,” Nico added.

“So we’ve got transport to get there on time?”

Lennox tapped Keane’s shoulder and pointed. Not too far off the wharf was one of the large coast guard cruisers. “So we’re going on the Acadia?”

“Yep, you sure are,” Nico said, with a laugh. “Gear’s already on board for both of you. A Zodiac awaits you at the end of the wharf. The driver will find you.”

“Meaning, we’ve already been tagged, and they’re just waiting for me to get off this call?” Keane asked.

“You got it. I don’t need to tell you that somebody’s daughter is out there.”

“Two somebody’s daughters, right?”

“Yes. Two women. Plus, remember the husband and wife from a week ago who are now dead.”

“And who were they?”

“Electronic reports are coming your way.”

Keane stood and looked at the end of one of the docks and saw a Zodiac watercraft with a seaman sitting in the front and staring at him. “I see our ride,” he said.

“I’ll send you more information when you’re on board.” And, with that, Nico hung up.

Keane pocketed his phone and motioned Lennox toward the wharf and asked, “You ready for a swim?”

Lennox gave him a big beefy grin. “I was born ready for swimming,” he said. “Why do you think I joined the navy?”

“Well, for this job, it sounds like we maybe should have gone into the coast guard,” Keane joked.

“Same diff,” Lennox said. “But a little bizarre.”

“The whole thing is bizarre,” Keane said, “and hardly a black-ops mission.”

“Disappointed?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Keane admitted. “I get that some of these jobs are pretty wild and wonderful, but I was hoping for a little bit more than the usual for me.”

“Who knows what this one could be?” Lennox said. “Besides, I’m just backup anyway.”

Keane snorted at that. “As backup, you’ll be right in the middle of it,” he said.

“Good,” Lennox said. “I hate being bored.”

Sandrine Coulter opened her eyes enough to realize she was still in whatever cell they’d been tossed into. Nearby, her best friend, Brenda Leigh, was barely conscious, her eyes fluttering as she struggled with a head injury. Sandrine rolled over and crawled to the side of her friend. “Hang in there,” she whispered.

“I don’t feel so good,” Brenda whispered. “What the hell happened?”

“Well, I know we left the boat,” Sandrine said, with an attempt to crack a joke. “But I think you were swept overboard, and, when I saw you in the ocean, I jumped in after you.”

She kept another suspicion in the back of her mind because she had no valid reason for contemplating the idea that they may have been pushed. Except that she’d received a nudge as she went over. But that would call into question the actions of the two men they’d been sailing with. “We were on the sailboat,” she said to Brenda. “Remember?”

“Yeah. What happened to Greg and Scott? Are they here with us?” Brenda’s breathing was low and shallow.

“I don’t see them,” Sandrine said. “Apparently somebody saved us, and we’re in some shelter that’s keeping us out of the weather,” she compromised. She was very concerned that their reality was much worse, but Brenda didn’t need to know that, at least not yet. “Just rest,” she said. “You’ve got a head wound. It stopped bleeding, but you’ve probably got a concussion.”

Brenda gave her a lopsided smile. “Always giving orders,” she whispered.

“Well, if you’d listened to the one about tying yourself to the sailboat,” Sandrine said, “you wouldn’t have washed overboard.”

“Or I would have washed overboard,” she said, “and been drowned while towed by the sailboat.”

“Not likely,” Sandrine said. “I’d been keeping an eye on you pretty steadily.” She hated to remember the horror when the catamaran had run into trouble in the storm and that Brenda was missing. Then Sandrine caught sight of her best friend in the ocean, crying out for help.

The guys had turned around the sailboat and thrown her a lifebuoy, but, when she couldn’t grab it, Sandrine contemplated going into the water after her, when suddenly she was in the water anyway. She had replayed the scene in her head over and over. Had she imagined feeling a literal nudge, or had she jumped in instinctively to help her friend? Going after someone in the open ocean in the midst of a storm was a recipe for two deaths.

Unfortunately she had no clue what happened after struggling to stay afloat as the catamaran was tossed farther and farther away from them.

The women were now in a room, almost like a root cellar, with a dirt floor and made of rock on three sides, but the double doors in front of her were interesting. She’d tried everything, but they didn’t open, and that’s where her fear began. She refused to even contemplate being a prisoner.

The immediate problem was that Brenda’s head wound hadn’t been treated. They had no bandages, and the wound hadn’t even been cleaned. Her hair should be clipped away and stitches put in. She wasn’t lying on a clean bed and was instead on the dirt, where they had been tossed. Exactly the same position Sandrine had found herself when she’d woken up the first time. She glanced at her friend. “Any idea who brought us here?”

“No,” Brenda whispered. “I just woke up here.”

“Me too,” Sandrine said. She got to her feet and walked to the doors for the umpteenth time. “There’s a double door,” she said, “but I can’t open it.”

“Somebody’s got to open it from the other side,” Brenda said. “Lots of big doors are like that.”

“Which is a stupid system,” Sandrine said caustically, looking around again. “I mean, if you’re inside, how do you get out? Another door should be here too.”

“There could be,” Brenda said. “I’d get up, but, every time I lift my head, the pain is excruciating.”

“Stay still,” Sandrine said, moving beside her friend once more and dropping beside her. “Definitely don’t move. I’ll see if there’s any way out of here.”

“Don’t forget to look up or down,” Brenda muttered, just as her eyes fluttered closed again.

Sandrine sat back on her heels, wishing she at least had blankets to cover Brenda. Her friend would catch a chill lying on the ground like this. It was a warm July day, but, after being in the water, their clothing was still wet, and, with that head injury, Brenda wasn’t likely to handle the additional stressors on her body that well. It was getting light enough now that, with any luck, Sandrine could do a full search. She had tried earlier, but it had been pitch-black. Not much had changed with the lighting right now, but enough sunlight came through the cracks around the doors that she could see better.

She walked to the wall and very carefully moved along, looking and feeling the surface until she came all the way around to the doors again. The problem was, it was all rock. Wherever they were, it was like a rock cave, almost like a ravine with some man-made roof on top. She could see beams closing it off, but the beams rested on the rock walls, so somebody had taken a natural formation and had adapted their needs to the existing rocks. It wasn’t that the ceiling was superhigh either, but Sandrine had nothing to stand on.

When on her tiptoes, Sandrine could reach up and feel the wood, but she couldn’t apply much pressure to lift up a beam. And the wood was covered on top. She didn’t know if it was topped by a mossy or a grassy slope by now or whether more wood or even roofing tiles were purposely laid down.

She returned to the double set of doors that should have opened from the center outward and checked the pins on the sides. The doors were made of wood, not steel, but some crossbar must have been on the other side because she couldn’t see any latch between the two of them but did see a shadow, and she wondered if a two-by-four blocked the doors from opening. Which would make it very hard for her to get out. She didn’t have anything small enough to fit in the crack between the two doors, and yet strong enough to lift the beam on the other side. Somebody had put her and Brenda in here and had secured the doors deliberately.

She hesitated calling out but knew that her friend needed help, plus Sandrine didn’t want to stay locked in here another minute. Taking a deep breath, she placed her mouth close to the crack between the two doors and called out, “Hello? Hello? Can you open this door, please? My friend needs help!”

She wasn’t sure what to expect, but, when no answer came, she returned to her friend and sat down. Brenda was unconscious again, her breathing shallow and low. And, just when Sandrine thought all was lost, she heard footsteps. She raced to the door and waited.

Chapter 3

As Sandrine watched and waited in the shadows, a bar was removed from outside the wooden doors, confirming her suspicion of a two-by-four closure. Then both doors were opened. She stared in shock at the soldier standing slightly above her. She hopped to her feet and ran toward him, climbing out of the enclosure. “Oh, my gosh,” she said. “Thank you for opening the door.”

Then she stopped because the look on his face was anything but nice. “My friend needs help,” she said, motioning toward Brenda. “I think she’s got a concussion.”

“She’ll be fine,” he said. “I have food for you though.”

She brightened at that. “Any chance of blankets?” she asked hopefully. “We need to be dry.”

He shrugged. “What do you expect when you come in out of the ocean?”

“I was hoping for a way to the mainland,” she said, not exactly sure what was going on, but whoever this person was, she doubted he was a soldier, regardless of his attire. At least not one from her country. “Is there any way to get us back?”

He shook his head. “Not right away. And I don’t have any blankets with me.”

At that, her hopes plummeted. “Do you have any spare blankets you can bring later? Or a way to build a fire? We can’t have one in there. Not enough ventilation.” She looked at the ground, fairly sandy with little bits of rocks. “We could build one just outside the doors though,” she said. “That would help.”

He shrugged. “As long as you don’t leave this area, that’s fine,” he said, “but you’ll have to forage for your own wood. And I don’t want you gone for very long.”

She hesitated, not sure exactly what was going on. “That’s fine,” she said. “Do you have any paper or matches?”

He laughed. “If you want a fire, build it yourself,” he said. He turned and picked up a plastic container with a big flat lid. Giving it to her, he said, “This is your food.” Then he turned and walked away. At least he didn’t lock the door. But then she was at the base of a long rock face. The shelter that they were in had a lot more rock above it, and they were nestled in a little sandy cove.

“Wait,” she called, running behind him.

He spun around and glared at her, his hand going to his hip.

That’s when she saw his gun. She swallowed hard. “I get that no wood is here, that I can’t build a fire and that you’re not very willing to help us,” she said, “but I do appreciate what you’ve done so far.”

His hand dropped slightly, and he stared at her, assessing her out in the light. “Well, make sure you stay grateful,” he said. “I don’t have to do this.” With that, he turned and left.

She took several deep, calming breaths, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. She wasn’t sure if they were prisoners or whether his words were a veiled threat that more would happen to them if they didn’t behave. But, as she looked around, only sheer rock walls and sand were here. She saw no wood, nothing to burn at all. Only more sand. At least out here it was dry and a lot warmer. If she could get Brenda out here, it would help. Sandrine put down the plastic container and walked back inside, but Brenda was sound asleep. Sandrine frowned at that but took off her shoes and her socks, then laid them outside to dry. If nothing else they needed to get some of these wet layers off.

It took a bit to get Brenda’s T-shirt and pants off. Sandrine wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to do, but wearing soaking wet clothing wouldn’t help her friend either. Sandrine laid them out in the sun as well, then quickly stripped off the outer layer of her own clothing as well. She was hoping the guard wouldn’t come back any time soon, since two women in just their underwear might put ideas into his head that she didn’t want there. She wrung everything out carefully and spread them on the hot sand, hoping they would take no time to dry. Then she went back in and checked on Brenda. Now on the floor without her clothing, Brenda was bound to be that much colder.

Brenda woke up at that point and stared at Sandrine. “We’re still here?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I need you to come outside into the sunlight,” she said. “I don’t know when we’ll have our visitor back, but I want us to get dry and warmed up while we can.”

With a great deal of effort, Sandrine helped Brenda to her feet, and they stumbled slowly out into the sunlight. They had not even a rock to lie on. She helped her friend lie down again and said, “Try to get warmed up, okay?”

“The sun feels really good,” Brenda whispered.

“I know,” Sandrine said. “But listen. At least one man is here, so we can’t stay in just our underwear.”

Brenda opened her eyes and stared at Sandrine in shock for a moment. Then she whispered, “I hear you. Let’s get as dry as we can.”