Baylor drove home, quickly changed, packed up his to-go bag, then raced down to the meeting. He walked in just as twenty minutes passed.
Mason looked over at him, then smiled and said, “Right on time. That’s good.”
“What’s going on?” Baylor asked.
“We’ve got a collision at sea,” he said.
“Oh? Like what, a tanker?”
“Not an oil tanker, a container ship, and it collided with a yacht.”
“And that has what to do with us?” Baylor asked in confusion.
“Well, supposedly the yacht rammed it on purpose, and now it’s taking on water. A crew’s heading out to salvage it before it goes down, and several people are missing off the yacht.”
“If they’re missing off the yacht, then there’s hardly reason to suspect it was deliberate then, is there?”
“Some sightings of a gunman with a rifle at the helm of the yacht were reported,” Mason said. “And, according to the helicopter pilot, the gunman shot somebody as it all went down.”
“Interesting,” Baylor said, “but still it doesn’t really explain our involvement.”
“It’s an American yacht and a Russian tanker.”
“So, cross-borders, definitely issues between countries, so, yes, that gets a little more complicated. And?”
“The yacht belongs to one of our governors.”
“Of course,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Was he aboard at the time of the collision?”
“The governor, his daughter, and his wife,” he said quietly. “We suspect a speedboat just left the yacht, before it rammed into the tanker.”
“I presume this happened not too far away?”
“Just over one hundred nautical miles off the Seattle coast.”
“When?”
Mason gave a one-arm shrug. “Over the twenty-four-hour mark.”
Baylor winced. Not good.
“We’ll be airborne in thirty-five,” Mason said. “You ready?”
“Always,” he said. With that, they disbanded and headed out to their meeting point for the flight. Baylor had his to-go bag with him, as they headed to the airport.
Mason glanced at him. “We’re only going with our tactical gear.”
“Okay,” Baylor replied. “I would imagine it will be a fairly quick trip in and out.”
“We hope so,” Mason said. “They’re working to shore up the tanker right now.”
“Not oil but goods, right?”
“Goods on its way to the shipyards.”
“Good enough. What do we know about the yacht?”
“It’s taken on a lot of water. We’ve confirmed nobody’s on board.”
“So what do we know about the governor and his family?”
“No sign of them.”
“And the speedboat?”
“No intel yet.”
Baylor nodded, as he sat here on board their transport, quietly thinking about it. “And the gunman? Wait, let me guess. No word on that either.”
“You got it,” Mason said.
“So we don’t have much to go in with, do we?”
“Nope. And you know as well as I do that sometimes we don’t get all the answers. We’ll have to see what we can find.”
“Has anyone checked out the crew of the tanker?”
“In progress.”
Mason’s answers were just short enough that Baylor knew Mason didn’t have much to go on himself. And nothing they hated worse than going into a situation like this where they didn’t have enough information to do the job. Baylor still didn’t understand why they were here, except for strings being pulled due to the fact that a US governor was involved and that his location was in question. That speedboat should have been tracked, but to where?
As soon as they arrived at the scene, they were put on the big tanker ship, where the Russian captain stood with his arms crossed, yelling at them. So much for diplomatic intervention. As it was, the SEALs immediately broke out and did a complete search of the tanker. First and foremost to find out if they were involved in this and if they had taken the governor on board, either deliberately or innocently, and were then trying to turn around the situation into something they could use for political gain. But when they reconvened exactly one hour later, the team stared grimly at each other.
“No sign of them?” Baylor asked.
“None,” Mason said quietly.
Baylor nodded and waited for the two men who had gone to search the yacht. They came back on board within minutes.
“No sign of anyone over there,” Hudson said. “Their personal belongings remain on board, so it looks like they left in a hurry.”
“Still nothing on the gunman?” Baylor asked Mason.
“Nope.”
Baylor turned to Hudson again. “What about lifeboats on the yacht?”
“Two, both are missing.”
Baylor faced Mason. “In that case, I presume we have a helicopter out searching for them?”
Mason nodded. “Yes, and again nothing yet.”
Baylor frowned. “They have to be somewhere.”
“That’s the assumption, but where?”
With no other plan, they headed back to the helicopter, but Baylor frowned as he thought about it. “I don’t really like anything about this.” He turned to look at the yacht, still close to sinking beside them. “I want to take a look for myself.”
Mason looked at him and shrugged. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
Baylor nodded and dropped over the side of the tanker and quickly scooched his way down to the yacht. It took a little bit to maneuver into the boat. As he went on the far side and slipped belowdecks, he navigated through the water slowly coming in. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but something about this whole thing bothered the hell out of him. He saw a notebook floating by and snatched it up. Carefully he took a look at it. As soon as he opened it, someone had written the word Help and a name.
Damn if it wasn’t his own name. On the bottom of the cover it said Gizella, which he knew to be the name of the governor’s daughter. And maybe a woman he had once met.
He lifted the soggy page and turned to the next one. There he saw a quick sketch of a man who made Baylor’s blood run cold. It was clearly a drawing of a well-known terrorist from Russia, who had separated from Russian politics and was now a mercenary. Shit. These guys were slippery, not easily found. He shook his head. Sometimes the bad guys were never caught.
Taking a quick look around for
