Read Online Perfectly Exposed (Command Unit Book 1) by Gail Faulkner - Free Book Online Page B

sucker. Brad sent another operative, Mike White, to go over Jack’s cover apartment. There was little hope of information but they were working anything, no matter how improbable. It was the only other place she’d been that was also connected to the case.
    An hour later Jack was holding on to sanity by will alone. Her apartment housed a harmless young woman. There was nothing there that made her a target. Nothing hidden under, behind, inside any piece of furniture. No mystery compartments, no false walls, no secrets that gave them one single fucking lead.
    Jack’s phone rang and he grabbed it, staring at the screen. Brad calling. “Mike has cameras and mics at your cover place,” Brad clipped. “Not cheap and not sloppy. Serious sophisticated shit we have not seen before. Check your place.”
    Punching off, Jack called to Rico. “New tech. Mics and cameras at my other place. Check here again. I’m at my apartment.”
    Forty minutes later the men were in Command’s office. Along with Brad, Jack, Rico and Mike were Trace, Sam, Dean and Jason. The eight-man core group of their slightly larger organization. They went over the few bits of information they had.
    “Jesus fuck. No idea where these came from.” Trace turned a combination camera and mic over in his hand. “Think the guy made them himself. Materials are from all over the globe but the tech required to create this is not public and I haven’t even heard a whisper about it being developed.”
    “New player,” Brad stated. “Introducing himself? Making a statement?”
    Snarls of agreement sounded around the room. That was the only solid fact any of them could make fit. Every other theory was sand, sifting away as soon as they touched it.
    Jack’s phone lit up. Hoping for something, a ransom demand, anything he grabbed it. His dad. Jack rejected the call, keeping the line open in case the dead-and-didn’t-know-it bastard reached out to him.
    Brad’s phone rang. Everyone looked at him as he activated the call, his deep voice greeting, “Stone.”
    Jack’s brows rose as he realized his father not only had Brad’s number but knew the man would answer.
    Brad’s side of the conversation progressed into the silence. “Yeah, send it to this number. I’m putting you on speaker.”
    His father’s voice came from Brad’s phone. “I know you got trouble, gentlemen. I received a note three minutes ago.”
    Brad interrupted, “It’s coming up on my computer screen now.”
    More silence as they all moved around to read Brad’s laptop.
     
    I have waited long for this. What I take now is less than the woman you took from me, but, Stone, even from the grave, I will have retribution. Any woman a Stone claims will die a used animal.
     
    “You have some other information to share?” Jack questioned as his eyes moved over the damn message again.
    “What’s the SITREP. I might be able to help,” Smoke Stone asked. “The content refers to an operation that is classified.”
    Brad briefed him on the information they had, the new tech bugging one of Jack’s places, the fast-grab evidence at her car and the whole lot of nothing they’d come up with.
    Smoke immediately had a shit load of direction. “Look for a boat that left dock today. Something registered in Eastern Europe with cargo deliveries in the Black Sea. Check every port on both coasts.”
    “On it,” Brad stated, nodding at Mike who was already working his laptop. “Tell us why we’re focusing on a boat?”
    Smoke Stone sighed. His regret whispered through the phone as he continued. “My team took a woman from this guy. It ruined his life in a big way, both professionally and personally, but his pockets were deep. Shipping money from way back. The op is still classified. How we did it made us more and him nothing. Made him a fool. He vowed retribution and attempted to retrieve our girl, several times. Eliminating him and his resources was logical. It was only after we realized he’d planned