Page 232 of Hidden Tide
“Stay with Elliot.”
“You’ll need a fifth man.”
“Elliot needs one too.”
Elliot turns toward Scott.
“Go.”
“No.”
“Simon is holding innocent people because of my family. I’m inside an armored vehicle surrounded by federal agents.”
“My orders are to protect you.”
“Then have them move me to the Coast Guard base.”
Marquez considers it.
“Approved. Federal agents will transfer Elliot and Arthur here. Scott joins the insertion team.”
Ben nods once.
All five SEALs.
Together.
Keating dispatches a fast response boat to retrieve them from the salvage yard. It will take them to a position ahead of the Argent Star, where they will enter the water outside Simon’s surveillance range.
I will be flown to the ferry landing with a decoy compass.
Everything begins moving at once.
Marquez sends tactical agents to the lighthouse ruins. Keating coordinates the Coast Guard vessels. A technician begins constructing a replica of my compass using the evidence photographs and a brass navigation piece from the base museum.
Mom comes toward me.
“No.”
“Mom—”
“I already let your father walk into Simon’s trap.”
“You didn’t let him do anything.”
“I knew he was going aboard the Mariner’s Crown.”
“And he asked you to stay with us.”
“He never came home.”
Her voice breaks.
I take both her hands.
“Dad went alone because he thought that was the only way to protect us. I’m not going alone.”
“You just told Simon you were.”
