feet. “Urgent.” Whatever message the transmission contained, Captain Udaka looked on it as a much-welcomed reprieve.
* * *
ZANE LISTENED INTENTLY to the secure satellite transmission, his mind racing as he began planning the logistics of the mission. “My team is two men short, sir,” he said. “Higgins and Odessa were injured in the security exercise.” He didn’t say how they’d been injured; that would be handled through other channels.
“Damn it,” Admiral Lindley muttered. He was in an office in the US Embassy in Athens. He looked up at the others in the office: Ambassador Lovejoy, tall and spare, with the smoothness bequeathed by a lifetime of privilege and wealth, though now there was a stark, panicked expression in his hazel eyes; the CIA station chief, Art Sandefer, a nondescript man with short gray hair and tired, intelligent eyes; and, finally, Mack Prewett, second only to Sandefer in the local CIA hierarchy. Mack was known in some circles as Mack the Knife; Admiral Lindley knew Mack was generally considered a man who got things done, a man whom it was dangerous to cross. For all his decisiveness, though, he wasn’t a cowboy who was likely to endanger people by going off half-cocked. He was as thorough as he was decisive, and it was through his contacts that they had obtained such good, prompt information in this case.
The admiral had put Zane on the speakerphone, so the other three in the room had heard the bad news about the SEAL team on which they had all been pinning their hopes. Ambassador Lovejoy looked even more haggard.
“We’ll have to use another team,” Art Sandefer said.
“That’ll take too much time!” the ambassador said with stifled violence. “My God, already she could be—” He stopped, anguish twisting his face. He wasn’t able to complete the sentence.
“I’ll take the team in,” Zane said. His amplified voice was clear in the soundproofed room. “We’re the closest, and we can be ready to go in an hour.”
“You?” the admiral asked, startled. “Zane, you haven’t seen live action since—”
“My last promotion,” Zane finished dryly. He hadn’t liked trading action for administration, and he was seriously considering resigning his commission. He was thirty-one, and it was beginning to look as if his success in his chosen field was going to prevent him from practicing it; the higher-ranking the officer, the less likely that officer was to be in the thick of the action. He’d been thinking about something in law enforcement, or maybe even throwing in with Chance. There was nonstop action there, for sure.
For now, though, a mission had been dumped in his lap, and he was going to take it.
“I train with my men, Admiral,” he said. “I’m not rusty, or out of shape.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Admiral Lindley replied, and sighed. He met the ambassador’s anguished gaze, read the silent plea for help. “Can six men handle the mission?” he asked Zane.
“Sir, I wouldn’t risk my men if I didn’t think we could do the job.”
This time the admiral looked at both Art Sandefer and Mack Prewett. Art’s expression was noncommittal, the Company man refusing to stick his neck out, but Mack gave the admiral a tiny nod. Admiral Lindley swiftly weighed all the factors. Granted, the SEAL team would be two members short, and the leader would be an officer who hadn’t been on an active mission in over a year, but that officer happened to be Zane Mackenzie. All things considered, the admiral couldn’t think of any other man he would rather have on this mission. He’d known Zane for several years now, and there was no better warrior, no one he trusted more. If Zane said he was ready, then he was ready. “All right. Go in and get her out.”
As the admiral hung up, Ambassador Lovejoy blurted, “Shouldn’t you send in someone else? My daughter’s life is at stake! This man hasn’t been in the field, he’s out of shape, out of practice—”
“Waiting until we could get another team into position would drastically lower our chances of finding her,” the admiral pointed out as kindly as possible. Ambassador Lovejoy wasn’t one of his favorite people. For the most part, he was a horse’s ass and a snob, but there was no doubt he doted on his daughter. “And as far as Zane Mackenzie is concerned, there’s no better man for the job.”
“The admiral’s right,” Mack Prewett said quietly, with the authority that came so naturally to him. “Mackenzie is so good at what he does it’s almost eerie. I would feel comfortable sending him in alone. If you want your daughter back, don’t throw obstacles in his way.”
Ambassador Lovejoy shoved his hand through his hair, an uncharacteristic gesture for so fastidious a man; it was a measure of his agitation. “If anything goes wrong...”
It wasn’t clear whether he was about to voice a threat or was simply worrying aloud, but he couldn’t complete the sentence. Mack Prewett gave a thin smile. “Something always goes wrong. If anyone can handle it, Mackenzie can.”
* * *
AFTER ZANE TERMINATED the secure transmission, he made his way through the network of corridors to Mission Planning. Already he could feel the rush of adrenaline pumping through his muscles as he began preparing, mentally and physically, for the job before him. When he entered the room with its maps and charts and communication systems, and the comfortable chairs grouped around a large table, five hostile faces turned immediately toward him, and he felt the surge of renewed energy and anger from his men.
Only one of them, Santos, was seated at the table, but Santos was the team medic, and he was usually the calmest of the bunch. Ensign Peter “Rocky” Greenberg, second in command of the team and a controlled, detail-oriented kind of guy, leaned against the bulkhead with his arms crossed and murder in his narrowed brown eyes. Antonio Withrock, nicknamed Bunny because he never ran out of energy, was prowling the confines of the room like a mean, hungry cat, his dark skin pulled tight across his high cheekbones. Paul Drexler, the team sniper, sat cross-legged on top of the table while he wiped an oiled cloth lovingly over the disassembled parts of his beloved Remington bolt-action 7.62 rifle. Zane didn’t even lift his eyebrows at the sight. His men were supposed to be unarmed, and they had been during the security exercise that had gone so damn sour, but keeping Drexler unarmed was another story.
“Planning on taking over the ship?” Zane inquired mildly of the sniper.
His blue eyes cold, Drexler cocked his head as if considering the idea. “I might.”
Winstead “Spooky” Jones had been sitting on the deck, his back resting against the bulkhead, but at Zane’s entrance he rose effortlessly to his feet. He didn’t say anything, but his gaze fastened on Zane’s face, and a spark of interest replaced some of the anger in his eyes.
Spook never missed much, and the other team members had gotten in the habit of watching him, picking up cues from his body language. No more than three seconds passed before all five men were watching Zane with complete concentration.
Greenberg was the one who finally spoke. “How’s Bobcat doing, boss?”
They had read Spooky’s tension, but misread the cause, Zane realized. They thought Higgins had died from his wounds. Drexler began assembling his rifle with sharp, economical motions. “He’s stabilized,” Zane reassured them. He knew his men, knew how tight they were. A SEAL team had to be tight. Their trust in each other had to be absolute, and if something happened to one of them, they all felt it. “They’re transferring him now. It’s touchy, but I’ll put my money on Bobcat. Odie’s gonna
