Drake Sisters 07 - Hidden Currents

sent back. Work your way into position as soon as you take out the boats, to cover our escape.â€
    â€œIt’s done,†Matt assured him. “We’l get her out, Jackson.â€
    Jackson didn’t want to think about “her,†or what might be happening. He didn’t dare connect with her until they had everything in place. If she believed they were coming in and something went wrong, it would crush her.
    Jonas clapped Jackson on the back. “We made it faster than we expected, and the girls are waiting. The moment you give the signal, they’l cal in the storm. Ilya’s already been testing the energy field. He says it’s strong, but we can bring it down under cover of the storm.â€
    â€œWho did the recon?â€
    â€œIlya,†Jonas said, knowing Jackson respected the man. “Looks like Gratsos has a smal army of his own. Only civilian that he saw was a housekeeper, but someone obviously keeps the grounds. He laid out what he could of the house. It’s glass, which gave him a fairly good view of the ground floor, but he couldn’t see much on the second floor, not the way it was designed. You’l be going in blind.â€
    Jackson shoved smal throwing knives into the loops of his belt. “I’l get her out.â€
    Jonas let out his breath. Jackson had been different—harder, colder—on a thin edge since he’d gone insane on the floor of the Drake home.
    When they’d lost the bridge, he’d been a madman, swearing, fighting, ready to kil . Not at al the ice-cold man Jonas had come to know over the years. He’d been shaking, and, God help them al , weeping genuine tears, his hands bal ed into tight fists as he pounded the floor. Fortunately, the house recognized Jackson and somehow cushioned those punishing punches. But then he’d sat on the ancient tiles and rocked back and forth, hands covering his face, the sounds coming from him torn from his soul.
    Jonas and the other men had had their hands ful trying to revive the Drake sisters, carrying them to bed, pouring tea down them. Ilya, even in his weakened state, tried to repair the damage done to Libby’s hand from where she’d attempted to heal both Jackson and El e from the electric burns in their brains. It had been a mess, but Jackson had been the biggest mess of al .
    When he was final y rational, he’d looked at Jonas with cold, haunted eyes. “We’re going after her immediately and we’l need every one of our friends. Cal them in, Jonas, tel them it’s personal and I’l owe them. Don’t give any information to her boss. Not a word. Not a whisper. We don’t want the law. We’re going to have to extract her and it’s going to be bloody so we’l need to be able to get out of the country immediately.â€
    â€œHit and run with no trace,†Jonas agreed.
    â€œWe can’t leave any trail back to us. That means no bodies left behind. Nothing that can be tracked.â€
    Then Jonas had looked at Jackson and realized he was back—the same man who wasn’t a man, who had returned from the prison camps just the shel of what he once was, nothing left but wil and iron. In that moment, in that look, Jackson changed Jonas. The look in his eyes swept the feeling of right and wrong away. There was no right, there was only a mission with one single outcome. He knew what that was; he knew how to carry out missions. They were going to need weapons and they were going to need men.
    â€œOur boys wil come, you know they wil . Everyone who ever cal ed us friend, everyone who ever owed us. No trace wil be found of any of us ever being there.†Jonas’s eyes locked with Jackson’s. “We’l get her out the way we’ve always done things—together.â€
    Jonas would never forget the look Jackson gave him. Whatever gentleness Jackson had learned during the last couple of years while he’d lived in Sea Haven, was gone in that one instant. Jackson had returned to being remote, distant, rarely speaking, his mouth grim, his eyes cold. He cleaned his weapons often and practiced both shooting and throwing knives. He broke down and rebuilt his rifle hundreds of time until his hands were a blur as he did it, and he always practiced blindfolded.
    Jackson turned away from Jonas and from the look on his face, a mixture of worry and