Kerrick Read online

  He immediately shook his head. “No, I can’t. I’m hungry again.”

  She shook her head, then just raised her hands in surrender and said, “There are still a few leftovers.”

  A couple sandwiches remained. She put one on a plate and handed it to him as he sat at the table and promptly scoffed it up. She turned when she heard Griffin and Kerrick whispering behind her and glared at them. “Now what?”

  But they were setting their watches and talking about buying new phones. “I’ll be right back,” Griffin said walking to the door.

  “We’re leaving soon,” Kerrick said with a smile to both Amanda and Brandon. “So be ready.”

  “I’ve been nothing but ready,” she snapped. “I, however, don’t even have a change of clothes.”

  “Well, we have to get you some interim gear,” he said, looking at Griffin, who nodded in return. “It won’t be fancy though.”

  Griffin promptly left, only to return in an hour, distributing one new cell phone to each of them, including Brandon, with strict instructions to not use them unless their life depended on it. That 9-1-1 calls were allowed, as long as they were no longer that thirty seconds in duration. “I’ve keyed in one new cell number into these phones. For Amanda, it’s Kerrick’s. For Brandon, it’s Amanda’s. Dial that number if you get lost and keep it close.”

  Amanda and Brandon nodded.

  “I mean it, Brandon. Your life is at stake here, so you must do as we say. Or you lose this privilege. Do you understand?” Kerrick asked.

  “Sure. Got it.”

  “Your life and Amanda’s life too.” Kerrick stared at the boy, who nodded and stared at Amanda with a very serious look on his face. Kerrick could only hope he truly understood how serious this was. “No calls to your father for either of you. Understand?”

  Amanda and Brandon nodded again.

  When everyone agreed to these terms, the guys made their calls. She sat here and waited until they were done, her fingers thrumming on the tabletop. But she smiled at Brandon and said, “If nothing else, we’ll have an exciting adventure.”

  Brandon immediately bobbed his head, his mouth full of sandwich. “I hope we get to go on one of those big naval warships. That would be awesome.”

  She stared at him, then glanced up at the two men, and wondered just what they had planned. She hoped it wasn’t a naval ship. That sounded noisy and crowded. And she didn’t think they would blend in very easily, particularly not a child on a naval vessel—not even a woman on a navy ship, not even in 2019—hence the problem with her and Brandon going aboard a military ship. Maybe it was better if they stayed on land. Only she didn’t want to be separated from any of them.

  One of the last calls Kerrick made had been to the Mavericks organization. They had been more efficient than Kerrick had expected once his request had gone out and plans were made. He told them that they were leaving in four hours but they were on the road in thirty minutes—in a new vehicle compliments of Griffin. They hit the coastline late that afternoon and boarded a small ship heading out toward the deeper waters. This particular ship was known for moving people in the dark of night. A contact he planned to keep for future reference.

  For now, they moved in broad daylight; night would fall before they reached their destination.

  As for Amanda and Brandon, they were both dressed in black. Amanda’s hair had been covered with a soft fishing cap. Brandon sat by her side. He had promised to always stay within arm’s reach of Amanda, and that promise was something he took very seriously.

  Kerrick turned to face the ocean, closing his eyes and lifting his face into the breeze. The waves were a bit choppy but not enough to slow their schedule.

  He stood at the front of the boat, letting the pilot cross the water as hard and as fast as the boat would go. He turned back and motioned at Amanda and Brandon to go down below. She nodded and led the boy underneath. She shot Kerrick a special smile and a little finger wave as the two of them tucked up into one of the big bunks underneath. He smiled, caught Griffin’s raised eyebrows, and then shrugged as he turned around.

  His sea legs were something he never lost. The water was his element. It didn’t matter whether he was in the water or on a boat like now. On any water vessel, he felt at home. He stood here for a long moment, his mind formulating the next step of the plan. Griffin tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, and Griffin motioned toward the back of the boat, where they could sit and talk.

  As he sat down, Griffin said, “I have the location of the research ship.” He held out his phone to show him.

  Kerrick looked at the map Griffin had and pulled out his laptop. Kerrick brought up real-time photos. “And our ship is where?”

  Griffin enlarged the map, so they could see the red dot showing their destination. They would transfer to a helicopter sometime after they arrived there, which would take them to the USS Antietam, which was even closer to Norway. Kerrick was fine with that. They had avoided any street cams so far. The satellites? Well, … they all had on some kind of a hat, so their faces had been covered somewhat. That would hinder any facial recognition software from getting a valid hit. He hoped …

  Now it was just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Antietam to the research vessel. It would have been easier and faster to fly straight into Norway and then catch a ride out to the Scion ship. But this way, they didn’t leave a paper trail, and nobody at Scion had a clue what they were doing or even who they were.

  They traveled for hours before the pilot called to Kerrick. He looked up to see the majestic carrier before them, lighting up the dark evening and the darker ocean. They pulled up slowly to it, next to the affixed ladder on its side, where the four of them would disembark. It was a long way up the side of this navy transport. These ships easily stood one hundred feet tall, just the part sitting atop the water, but a landing was not too far up its side where Brandon and Amanda must get to.

  Kerrick quickly woke them up, and, as they shook the sleep out of their gazes, he told them how this would work. He would usher them over the side of this small boat, where they must climb up a ladder on the huge ship, with Kerrick ahead of them and Griffin behind them—to make sure they didn’t fall and to navigate them successfully into the cargo levels within.

  Brandon’s jaw dropped as he stared around. He whispered, “This is huge.”

  Kerrick placed a finger on his lips and whispered, “From here on in, not a word. Not until you reach your quarters, all right?”

  Brandon’s gaze widened again, and he quickly nodded. Amanda wrapped an arm around the kid’s shoulders and tucked him up closer to her as they got into line. She was cursing her own lack of fitness by the time they climbed the ladder and stepped onto a landing. Brandon made the climb much more easily.

  One navy officer met them, led them through a series of steps up and down, and then filed them into one small room. In all that time, not one word had been spoken. As soon as they were inside, Kerrick motioned to the bunk on the bottom and said softly, “That’s for you two.”

  Amanda nodded, laid down, and urged in low voice, “Brandon, come lie down with me.”

  Immediately he hopped into the bed beside her and curled up tight. Kerrick grabbed a blanket by her feet and threw it over them. “One of us will always be here,” he murmured. “But no talking. If you have to, whisper.”

  Griffin sat down on the small bench space opposite them. As soon as Amanda closed her eyes, Kerrick smacked Griffin lightly on the shoulder and said, “I’ll be back soon.” Then he disappeared.

  Kerrick headed back onto the landing where they had come from, having memorized his path easily. There, he met the one person who had helped him off the boat and into the ship’s belly. The hired boat they’d arrived on was long gone.

  Kerrick was handed an envelope. He nodded, opened it up, quickly took a look. He checked the time; they were leaving in six hours. With a pat on his buddy’s shoulder, Kerrick returned to their room. By the time he got there, Amanda and Brando
n were sound asleep, and Griffin was working on his computer. Kerrick stepped inside, closed the door carefully so that he didn’t wake anybody, and dropped the envelope beside Griffin. “Helicopter out in six hours,” he said.

  Griffin nodded. “Perfect.” Then the man glanced at Brandon. “He’ll need food before then.”

  “He’ll get it.” Kerrick shrugged. “Meals will be delivered.”

  Griffin nodded. “Secrecy at all costs. Still, I think we should have left them on shore.”

  “I wish,” he said. “But there’s just the two of us, so who were we to leave them with?”

  Griffin winced. “I know. That’s why they’re still with us.”

  “Any news on the other kidnappers?”

  “The Mavericks have a location pinpointed,” Griffin said in a low voice. “Already setting up a sting operation to get in.”

  “Good,” Kerrick said. “I don’t understand exactly what the bottom line is here with the company, Scion Labs. What does it seek to gain? To think they were holding Amanda and Brandon under those conditions is beyond belief.”

  “Our guys might have found Brandon’s father,” Griffin said, his voice dropping even lower. But his tone told Kerrick so much.

  “They found him in the warehouse?”

  He nodded. “Crispy critter, no ID on him, and no way to know for sure. But it’s highly suspected that’s who he is.”

  “I hate results like that,” Kerrick muttered. “We need one hundred percent ID.”

  “I agree. We can send over some DNA.”

  “We could, but they should have enough to confirm Mr. Coleman’s DNA via Brandon’s DNA found on his body tracker.”

  “Exactly,” Griffin said. Then he waited a heartbeat and added, “But that wasn’t mentioned.”

  “That’s not good news.” Kerrick’s gaze flew to meet his partner’s. “An oversight? Haven’t gotten to it yet? My gut’s talking to me.” He brought out a phone and quickly asked.

  He read out the almost immediate response. “DNA was too degraded to match.”

  “Convenient for the killer.” The two men frowned at each other.

  Griffin said, sending a wary look to Kerrick. “But, ever since meeting up with that threesome … that’s why we switched out that next safe house, why we left our Mavericks-issued phones behind. Something there wasn’t right. At least we have a secure connection to the Maverick team. They can track us. But we don’t want Hinkleman’s goons doing so.”

  Kerrick sat here, pondering that further. “But Brandon?”

  “Might have been kidnapped to keep his father in line. Particularly if Mr. Coleman was supplying the Scion Labs company with his very specialized products, which Coleman’s ledger seems to indicate. Then killed when he wouldn’t cooperate? Or Brandon’s father faked his own death? It’s not like he wouldn’t have access to a body as a substitute?”

  “So, no political ties that we know of, but a potentially worldwide service industry that Amanda’s kidnappers, that Scion Labs, needed?” Kerrick nodded slowly. “God, this could be so much bigger than just those three holding facilities we know of in London. I mean, illegal organ harvesting brings to mind kidnapping, human trafficking, just to kill them for their organs. The legal version would hardly be pretty, except for the intended end result—saving a person’s life. Otherwise, it would be a damn ugly business if Mr. Coleman were illegally harvesting.”

  “The question is,” Griffin began, “whether he wanted to stop doing it or whether they were looking for something a little more unusual.”

  “Are you talking about illegally harvesting stem cells?”

  The room went quiet.

  There was absolutely nothing good about that line of thought. If Brandon’s father dealt in legal donations of human organs, that was one thing. Kerrick could only hope that the people donating their body parts were dead from natural causes. But what if Brandon’s dad had been requested by the kidnappers—aka Scion Labs—to find a particular body part? Of course with a matching blood type, to use in black-market organ transplant surgeries. Or, in properly matched human volunteers, for those human trials that Amanda needs to prove her cure, which were so hard to get official permission for.

  Regardless of which purpose, maybe Scion had placed too many orders for organs or cadavers not currently in stock at Mr. Coleman’s?

  Or was this ultimately about finding the more universal body part: stem cells that grew into various other body parts? And in numbers that Brandon’s dad couldn’t foresee supplying in normal legal situations. That would certainly be a valid reason to hold his son hostage and, once Brandon escaped, to then burn down Mr. Coleman’s warehouse with him in it. “We have to get onto the research vessel,” Kerrick said.

  “Well, we’re getting there, just another hop, skip and a jump away. At least they’re having an exciting adventure,” Griffin said, with a nod to their sleeping companions. “Brandon’s quite the character.”

  Kerrick nodded, but he kept quiet.

  “And you and Amanda seem to have hit it off,” Griffin pushed.

  “What’s not to like? She’s nice. I admire her strength, resourcefulness, and especially the fact that she’s a brainiac and doing something worthwhile with it. Obviously it’s easy to respect her for that too.”

  “Well, I saw an awful lot of heat and sparks between you two that had nothing to do with respect and admiration,” Griffin said, chuckling. “But that’s all right. You’re entitled to your privacy.”

  “I wish,” Kerrick said. “As you know we have had no privacy.”

  “I know. … I was really surprised to hear you were in.”

  “Ditto.”

  The two men looked at each other, taking their measure.

  “Are you staying in?” Griffin asked.

  “I’m not sure. I wasn’t expecting this at all,” he said. “This opportunity that arose.” Then he studied Griffin and asked, “You?”

  Griffin nodded. “Same. Although I’m not sure that I was quite as ready as you to leave the navy. The SEALs team that I worked with was great. But you get to the point where you wake up in the morning and wonder when it’s enough.”

  “Exactly,” Kerrick said. “And this seemed like something worthwhile that I could move on to.”

  “Exactly,” Griffin said. “You’ll do more?”

  Kerrick snorted. “Got to survive this one first.”

  “I’m surprised, given the sophistication of this kidnapping operation, how they have obviously done this before,” Griffin said slowly, “that we haven’t been attacked. In my head, there were a couple opportunities where the local goons could have taken us out.”

  Kerrick stared at his buddy, his mind going back over everything they had encountered so far. “Well, I could confirm one opportunity. Potentially a second one, yes. The fact that they haven’t is interesting, isn’t it?”

  “And dangerous,” Griffin said. “I can’t help but think it’s a trap.”

  “The research ship itself? Or every step of the way getting there?”

  “The vessel,” he said slowly. “Where’s Hinkleman? And is that body Mr. Coleman’s? Were the Scion employees all in on this, even at the board and its leadership and management levels? In which case, everybody is collateral damage.”

  “In which case, they’re more than happy for all of us to show up on the vessel,” Kerrick said, sitting back and staring at Griffin. “And take us all out.”

  “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? We would hope not, but how can we not consider that?”

  “I don’t want to consider any of it. I’d like to take Amanda and Brandon away from here and find some peace and quiet.”

  “Me too,” Griffin said. “But you and I both know the world’s a much uglier place than most of the average people know about.”

  “True enough, and that’s not very nice to consider either.”

  “No, but the problem is, it never seems to get any better.”

  “Which is why we
’re doing what we’re doing, to bring down this ring of people. But exactly what are they doing and why? Holding political prisoners for political favors or for ransom? Or holding these victims for body parts or for human trafficking? Or first to sell them off and then to harvest them once their buyer is done with them? For whatever reason they’re being kidnapped and held in a prison environment. Plus research is involved, the kind of research that involves ordering body parts. … What’s the chance those kidnapped people were kept strictly for body parts?” he asked with a frown. “Not about politics. Not about ransom money. Totally about body parts.”

  “No clue,” Griffin said. “But damn I don’t like that thought.”

  “We needed a small team for this job initially, but, at the same time, a part of me says we need some analysts to go through the company.”

  “The cyberteam is on it. So far they haven’t found anything.”

  Kerrick wandered around the small room, restless. He should be sleeping, but finally he decided that he needed to disengage his brain. “I’m catching twenty,” he said as he kicked off his shoes, climbed onto the top bunk, and stretched out. After years of experience, he knew exactly how hard it was to go to sleep anywhere at any time, but he had perfected a lot of skills to help him get to the top of his game.

  Within two minutes, he had his eyes closed and had already drifted into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 14

  She woke up when a hand gently shook her shoulder. Amanda stared up at Kerrick and whispered, her throat hoarse and her voice raspy, “Hey. What’s up?” Her hands automatically stroked the side of his face.

  “We’ll be leaving in a couple hours,” he whispered gently. “Sorry to wake you but thought you might want to freshen up before we eat. Food will be here soon.”

  Her brain still foggy, she attempted to focus on what was going on. And then it all came rushing back. She rolled over to her back and groaned lightly. “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “Seriously.”