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Carson burst out laughing. “When Colby told me, all of the weird stuff that I couldn’t seem to resolve between Emery and I suddenly became crystal clear. That must have been so confusing and annoying for you. Let me say as dense as you thought I was, big brother here is even more so.”
“Let’s get you two into the house and get you fed,” said Colby. “I understand we have a group of scientists stranded in Reykjavik we need to go rescue.”
“Not to mention a lab to blow up,” said Mason.
Mason tucked Emery’s hand through his arm. “Colby said something about feeding us.”
“I did indeed,” said their host, ushering them into the massive and ornate dining room.
Over the next several hours they ate, withdrew to Colby’s study and devised a bold and daring plan to rescue those at NLGP who needed rescuing and destroy the complex as well as its hideous experiments and computer data.
The first domino in bringing down the Shadow League was about to fall.
CHAPTER 19
MASON
Northern Lights Genome Project
Reykjavik, Iceland
Three Days Later
It shouldn’t have surprised him that Colby had a small submarine, but it had. He’d never thought of himself as claustrophobic, but it had taken everything he had possessed to climb down the ladder into the bowels of an iron tube in Kulusuk, Greenland. Hearing the hatch being secured and feeling the sub start to pull away from the dock out into the Denmark Strait had caused him to pause. But hearing the sub’s commander give the order to dive, feeling the nose of the sub begin to angle down and the realization that they were headed under the water had almost unnerved him.
Deke placed his hand on Mason’s shoulder. “They’ll be fine, as will those we’re going after. You? I’m not so sure about that. I can’t believe you’ve never been on a sub.”
“Never needed to be, and frankly never wanted to be.”
“You’ll get used to it. About the sixth or seventh time, you quit feeling like you’re going to puke at any minute. And after the twelfth or thirteenth, you don’t much think about it unless you hear the damn thing groaning from the strain of the water pressure threatening to rip it apart and send you to the bottom of the ocean.”
“Not helping,” said Mason.
“Not trying to,” chuckled Deke. “Seriously, I can’t stand these damn things, but it’s the best way we have to sneak into NLGP’s complex. There’s an entrance into the tunnel system close to the dock. If we time it right, the sub will be able to put us out on the dock and Brie will be waiting to take us in. She and Eddie will focus on getting people out while we check for stragglers, fight with the bad guys and plant the explosives.”
“Shouldn’t we be a little concerned about someone in Reykjavik noticing the explosion or that there’s no longer a large complex there?”
“That’s the beauty of it. NLGP and its personnel, for the most part, have never been a real part of the city. Very few employees lived in Reykjavik. Most lived in company-provided housing on the property.”
“But what about the complex itself? Surely someone’s going to notice that it’s been replaced by a big black scorch mark.”
“There won’t be a ‘big black scorch mark.’ When somebody flies over or if they catch sight of it from some other vantage point, they’ll still see the building. They’re going to implode the building—in other words, the explosives will destroy the interior, but leave the walls standing. Oh, at some point, I’m sure it’ll start to tumble in on itself, but that’ll be years from now.”
“What’s to stop the League from coming back and re-building?” asked Mason, who probably should have been there for the whole debrief but was more concerned with ensuring Emery was cared for.
“When the dust has settled, Brie and Eddie will come back in with a team to put monitors in place. If someone comes back, for any reason, we’ll know and will disabuse them of the notion that re-establishing something there is a good idea.”
Mason shook his head. “Planning and executing an op when I didn’t have a mate was a whole lot easier.”
Deke chuckled and clapped him on the back. “Tell me about it. I know everyone thinks their mate is the worst kind to leave behind, but female cave lions are the worst.”
That statement and the obvious love Deke had for his Annie made him laugh and started to loosen the twist in his gut. “Yeah. Emery was none too pleased with being left behind.”
“If all she was fell into the ‘none too pleased’ category, count yourself lucky. Annie was fit to be tied, which I had to threaten to do. By the way, that only works if they know you’ll do it, but be warned, turning them loose can be painful.”
Mason laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The rest of the trip to Iceland was relatively smooth sailing, except for every time the submarine groaned, he could hear Deke’s comment about being ripped apart and plummeting to the bottom of the ocean. And each and every time he looked at Deke, the cave lion was grinning. There were times he really hated Deke.
