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After intentionally running the Zodiac aground on the breakwater, Maddock and Bones had also gone into the water, but unlike Jade and the others, they had stayed there, watching and waiting.
And waiting.
The plan was simple. Divide and conquer, though in this instance, they would be the ones dividing their forces. Kismet, Jade and Rose would go ashore and hopefully draw most of the killers after them, and—again hopefully—unleash the orb’s power to defeat the gunmen. While the three of them were doing that, Maddock and Bones would lie low—literally—staying partially submerged in the surf, hiding under the wreckage of the Zodiac until the boats came in. Once the gunmen took the bait, the two of them would sneak aboard one or both of the boats, overpower whatever crew remained, after which they would regroup and head back to Plymouth, leaving their would-be attackers stranded on the breakwater.
Simple. And far from perfect.
The abandoned Zodiac to which Maddock and Bones clung was just so much flotsam, alternately slammed into the breakwater by the storm waves and then dragged back out into the sea. The water was a hypothermia-inducing 50° Fahrenheit, but he and Bones had trained under harsher conditions in the course of their SEAL training, and knew their limitations. Maddock figured they could last at least half an hour if they had to, maybe longer. It wouldn’t be pleasant. In fact, between the pummeling, the cold, and having to listen to Bones whine about “shrinkage,” it would be absolute hell.
Kismet and the others would face a different set of problems. He had already twice proven his ability to control the otherworldly talisman, and Maddock felt certain their new friend would be able to deliver once again, but there was no telling what would happen when he attempted to use the orb to create an electrical force field in the rain. There was a very real chance that the orb would short out, leaving them defenseless, or even electrocute Kismet, but he had assured them all that he could handle whatever happened.
The real problem with the plan was that everything depended on the bad guys doing exactly what Maddock wanted them to do. If they didn’t take the bait, come ashore on the breakwater and chase after Kismet and the others, it would all be for nothing.
Yet, what choice did they have? The Zodiac wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Better to abandon it with solid ground underfoot. Worst case scenario, it would be a stalemate, and that was better than drowning in the English Channel.
They didn’t have to wait long. The boats—gray and black RIBs, military versions of the Zodiac—came in cautiously, running the screws in reverse, then forward, to hold station about twenty yards off the rocks. Maddock counted eight men—four in each boat—all wearing tactical black from head-to-toe. Either Aliyah’s magicians had a special operations division, which he doubted, or these guys were working for Prometheus.
One by one, three men from each boat fearlessly took the plunge. They vanished into the water, reappearing a few seconds later in the frothy surf. They scuttled up onto the rocks, moving on all fours like crabs. The two pilots shone their spotlights onto the shoreline until all six men were accounted for, then revved their motors, backing the boats away from the breakwater, getting clear of the surf.
“If we’re going to do this,” Bones started.
“I know,” Maddock said, fighting to keep his teeth from chattering. “I’ve got right. You take left.”
“Sure,” Bones growled. “Make me swim further.”
The big man ducked his head under the surface and was gone before Maddock could point out that there was no meaningful difference in the distance to the two RIBs, respectively. Maddock shook his head, fixed the location of the boat in his mind, and then after drawing in a deep breath, submerged himself and started swimming underwater.
His sodden clothes reduced his natural buoyancy to the point where he barely had to exert himself to stay submerged, and since he could hold his breath for well over two minutes, there was no need to come to the surface until he was right where he wanted to be. There really wasn’t much risk of being seen by the pilots of the two boats, not unless they happened to move their lights to shine them directly on the spot where he was going to break the surface, but Maddock was a believer in Murphy’s Law—if something can go wrong, it will—and he planned accordingly. Years of real-world experience gave him an almost supernatural sense of where he was in relation to the other boat, but he allowed a generous margin of error just in case.
When he was fairly certain of his position, he allowed himself to drift back up to the surface. As soon as his head cleared the water, he spotted the silhouette of the nearest RIB, about fifteen meters away, and right between him and the breakwater.
Perfect.
He repositioned to face the vessel’s stern and began pulling himself through the water using a slow breast stroke that kept just his eyes and nose above the waterline. At first, he could only make out the outline of the man sitting in the pilot’s chair but as he got closer and the angle of his line of sight became sharper, the man disappeared behind the bulk of the outboard. Fortunately, that would work both ways; the man in the boat would not see him coming either.
He dog-paddled closer, one hand outstretched and resting against the engine cowling to maintain a safe distance from the boat until he was ready to make his move. The outboard was still running at idle but that could change at any moment and with no warning at all. The last thing Maddock needed was for a swell to throw him into the screws just as they began turning. Carefully, so as not to transmit any vibrations through the hull, he pulled himself in close, grasping the molded stern just to the right of the engine cowling, and then slowly, stealthily, pulled himself up onto the molded transom and—
Froze as he realized he was looking down the barrel of a gun.
Crap! Maddock thought. As careful as he had been, somehow the man had sensed his presence. So much for the stealthy approach. I hope Bones is having better luck.
The muzzle was just a couple inches from his face, close enough that even in the low light conditions, he could tell that it was bored for a 5.56-millimeter round—an AR-15 variant of some kind. Definitely not the same kind of hardware Aliyah’s magick order had been packing. The weapon was close enough that, under any other circumstances, he would have been tempted to grab the barrel, redirect it away from his face and yank it out of the gunman’s hands, but his precarious position on the stern of the RIB made that a risky proposition. Not out of the question, but risky enough that he decided to consider other options.
He raised his eyes, looking past the barrel to the face of the man who held the weapon. The man was grinning, a big, hungry grin that made Maddock think of the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.
My what big teeth you have....
“Dane Maddock,” the grinning man exclaimed, as if they were long-lost friends. “Well, I’d be lying if I said it was a surprise to see you. TBH, I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t tried something like this.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the water temperature shot through Maddock. He didn’t recognize the grinning man’s face, but there was no mistaking the voice. Or his bizarre insistence on using “text-ese” abbreviations in everyday speech.
TBH.
That was the name he had given to the faceless leader of the Prometheus strike team that tried to capture the orb in the Outpost in Antarctica.
“No,” he gasped. “No way. You’re dead!”
Maddock was certain of that. TBH had been impaled on the adamantine-infused blade of the tomahawk that had led them to the orb and awakened its power. The hatchet head had gone clean through his chest. It was a mortal injury. Unsurvivable even under the best of circumstances with immediate medical attention.
TBH grinned again. “It didn’t take.”
A swell rocked the boat under them and water sloshed over Maddock’s head but the weapon aimed at him did not waver.
“How?”
TBH laughed. “Ask my brother. Oh, wait. I guess you’re not going to get a chance to do that.” He paused a second and then added, “You know, because you’ll be dead.”
Maddock barely registered the threat—
Brother?
—but at the other end of the rifle, the Prometheus leader squared his shoulders and curled his finger around the trigger.