Secret Assignment

They went downstairs together, easing through the dim shadows to the French doors on the eastern side of the house. Shannon peered through the clear glass. “I don’t see the lights anymore.”

“How much longer?” Lydia asked.

Shannon checked her watch. “Two minutes.”

“Do you see any sign of Gideon?”

“No. He went out through the garden door.”

“Perhaps we should make our way to the foghorn switch.” Lydia hooked her free hand in Shannon’s elbow, guiding her toward the kitchen. Shannon heard a pantry door creak open and a soft tapping sound. A light mounted inside the pantry snapped on, illuminating cans, bottles, boxes and, at the back of the second shelf, as Gideon had promised, a simple electrical toggle switch.

Shannon checked her watch. The second hand passed twelve. “Now,” she said, her stomach aching with tension.

Lydia flipped the switch. Shannon braced for the moan of the foghorn.

But nothing happened.

Chapter Four

Three years of Marine Special Operations missions in Afghanistan. Four more years of duty in Iraq, clearing Baath Party holdouts and al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters out of war-weary villages hungry for peace and stability. He’d done a final three years on super-secret reconnaissance missions in Kaziristan and almost paid with his life.

Gideon had seen his share of impossible missions and no-escape situations. Being surrounded by at least three unknown subjects wasn’t the most terrifying situation he’d ever dealt with. Not by a long shot.

But if he had his choice, he’d rather be elsewhere.

Time ticked inexorably away as his quarry circled him in the thick stand of pines and hardwoods that grew in abundance in the center of the island. He didn’t want to give away his position by lighting the dial of his watch to check the time, but he was certain most of the fifteen minutes he’d given Shannon to wait before acting had already passed.

What would the men moving through the trees around him do once the lighthouse foghorn sounded?

He hadn’t gotten very close to the intruders before they extinguished their lights, making recon substantially more difficult. Whoever they were, they were damn good at moving quietly through the dark, making him wonder for a while if they were wearing night-vision goggles. He gave himself a mental kick for not having a pair of his own, although in his defense, he’d thought he’d left his night-combat days far behind him.

He spotted one of the intruders again, finally. Male, based on his shape and size. He was dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt, dark trousers, a black hood and a balaclava, as they all had been. He wasn’t visibly armed, though Gideon couldn’t be sure he wasn’t packing a concealed weapon. No sign of night-vision goggles, he saw to his relief.

Time ticked, and still no horn. Surely fifteen minutes had passed.

The sound of movement nearby set his nerves on edge. He hunkered lower, sheltered by a fallen pine tree that had gone down during the last tropical storm of the previous season. The leaves were brown and prickly but offered acceptable shelter.

He spotted movement to his right. A second man glided through the trees in near silence. “It’s done,” the newcomer said in a flat, Midwestern accent that sounded strangely familiar. Gideon frowned, trying to remember where he’d heard that voice before.

“Good.” The first man’s voice was pitched a step or two lower, the authority in his voice unmistakable. He seemed to be the leader.

“There’s still Stone to deal with,” Midwest said. “And the women.”

“An old lady and a little stick of a girl. Still decent odds.”

Gideon arched his eyebrows at the man’s description of Shannon Cooper, remembering the way her windblown clothes had hugged her tempting curves and delightful valleys.

A third man circled around, moving with more speed than stealth. Through the pine fronds sheltering his hiding place, Gideon saw the leader wheel around aggressively as he reached them. Even though the third man was the largest of the three by far, he took a faltering step back as the leader hissed his displeasure.

“Stupid idiot, what part of silent force don’t you understand?”

“No sign of Stone,” the big man said in a growling bass. “I thought you said he would be trouble.”

“He will,” the leader said. “He’s already on guard, thanks to the misstep earlier,” the leaders said. “If we give him more time to shore up his defenses, we may not get a second chance. He thought he won today. He thinks he has time.”

“Arrogant son of a bitch,” Midwest muttered.

Gideon frowned. That remark sounded personal.

The men moved forward toward the house, away from Gideon’s hiding place. With their backs to him, he took a chance to check his watch. Five past ten, and still no horn.

Where was Shannon?

* * *

“G IDEON ’ S NOT GOING to be happy that I’m letting you wander out here while there are intruders about,” Shannon whispered to Lydia as she followed the older woman through the high sea grass behind the caretaker’s cottage.

“He asked you to sound the horn,” Lydia said sensibly. “We need to find out why the switch didn’t work. And because you don’t know how the contraption works and I do...”

They’d already checked the electrical connection to the house and found that the circuit appeared to be intact. “The problem must be on the lighthouse end,” Lydia had told her solemnly. “The lines between the lighthouse and here run underground,” she added, showing Shannon where the cable ran down into the sandy soil. “We have to go to the lighthouse to see if someone has disabled the horn on that end.”

Shannon hadn’t protested Lydia’s pronouncement at first, her mind on Gideon somewhere out in the woods, outnumbered at least three to one. But the farther they walked from the house, the more vulnerable she felt.

Gideon had told her to stay put, and while she wasn’t the sort of woman who needed a man to make her decisions for her, she knew the odds were against a natural explanation for the switch malfunction. More likely, someone had sabotaged the switch at the lighthouse.

Would that someone be guarding his handiwork? Were they walking into a trap?

She kept her hand on the butt of her GLOCK as she walked through the sand, her calves beginning to ache from the extra exertion. Up ahead, Nightshade Island Lighthouse glowed as pale as alabaster in the blue moonlight peeking through scudding clouds overhead.

“There are two places where the connection could have been disrupted,” Lydia whispered as they neared the base of the lighthouse. “Here, where it comes out of the building and goes through a circuit box. And then there’s also a connection up in the lighthouse itself.”

Using a small penlight Shannon had grabbed from her duffel bag, they examined the connector. “It looks all right,” Shannon murmured.

“That leaves the direct connection to the horn at the top,” Lydia said, gazing up at the tall lighthouse. “There’s a spiral staircase inside that leads to the service room and then up to the lantern room at the top, where the beacon is located. The beacon no longer works, but Gideon had an electrician from the mainland rig the horn. It’s located on the catwalk outside the service room.” Bathed with moonlight, her face creased with regret. “I’m afraid I can’t manage all those stairs with my arthritic knees. You’ll have to check it.”

“How will I know if it’s connected?”

“I’m not sure, but I suspect if it’s been tampered with, you’ll know.”

“You’ll have to stand guard,” Shannon said, hating the idea of leaving Lydia alone. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

She opened the faded wood door of the lighthouse, her nerves twitching as her footsteps on the stone floor echoed up the tall structure. With her penlight, she traced the curve of the spiral staircase. At the top, there seemed to be a large, enclosed platform. That must be the service room.

She started up the steps, keeping her gaze directed upward. The steps were rusted but seemed sound enough, though the creaks and groans of metal echoed through the stone tower as she climbed.

She was breathing hard and her legs were shaking by the time she reached the service room, although she suspected fear, more than exertion, was the source of her weakness. She leaned against the damp stone wall and flashed her penlight around, taking in the small space.

There was little left of whatever had been inside the service room when the place was a working lighthouse. A rickety table, missing one leg and lying in a lopsided heap against one wall, took up half the space. Fortunately, it didn’t block the door that led out to the narrow catwalk circling the lighthouse. Light seeped in through a cracked and dirty window. From elsewhere—either the broken window or the narrow space beneath the door—a draft blew in, cool and fragrant with the sea.