Surrender at Dawn Read Free

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    Jack glanced at her. “Ever since the coup, Ko Aroon’s been overrun by criminals. Drug runners. Gun runners. You name it. Going in there as a reporter would be suicide.”
    “I know.” Charlotte could hardly talk around the lump in her throat. Hearing him say it made it all too real.
    “And just what were you planning to do? Wade ashore and ask if anyone’s seen him around?”
    She heard the scorn in his voice and knew it sounded crazy. It was crazy. But Davey was her kid brother. She’d been bailing him out of trouble all her life and she wouldn’t run away now.
    “I brought money. I thought I’d hire someone to go in there and try to buy him out.”
    Jack didn’t respond, and she wondered what he thought of this plan. She wondered what his plan was, because he obviously had one.
    “Where are we going?” she asked again.
    “Reconnaissance.”
    The right wing dipped, and Charlotte gazed down at a cluster of green islands. Not Ko Aroon. From the map she’d studied, she knew it was an isolated chunk of land about twenty miles from anything else.
    The wings leveled again, and Charlotte took a deep breath.
    She was in good hands. Not Mark’s hands, but good hands. Jack Brenner was highly trained and Mark trusted him.
    So why did she feel like she was about to throw up?
    “It’s coming up on your right.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Aroon Island. Up ahead, about three o’clock. Keep your eyes peeled because if I fly over more than once, it’ll attract attention.”
    “What are we looking for?” she asked, as a green dot came into view.
    “Boats, docks, buildings. Anything that gives you an idea of who or how many we’re dealing with.”
    A chill slithered down Charlotte’s spine as they neared the island. It looked like a patch of jungle, hardly larger than a few football fields. Was her brother down there, amid all that tangled vegetation? Was he alive?
    “I’ve got three motorboats, two long-tails, and a kayak,” Jack said. “What about you?”
    She swallowed down her fear. It wouldn’t help Davey. “I see two sort of primitive buildings set back from the beach.”
    “Quonset huts,” he said. “There’s one on that south hill, too. Okay, we’re going to go directly over. Look carefully.”
    She peered out the window. “I see a tower of some kind on the hill to the north.”
    “Cell tower.”
    “And there’s a rectangular clearing. It looks man-made.”
    “Any clearing around here is going to be man-made.”
    “Is it an airstrip?”
    “Not long enough,” he said. “Looks like a firing range. And it wasn’t here last time I did a flyover. Neither were the Quonset huts. Looks like Chanarong’s been making some capital improvements.”
    “Chanarong?” she glanced over at him.
    “The big bad mofo who runs the place. He deals in heroin, arms, and pretty much anything of value he can get his hands on.”
    “He’s famous around here?”
    “Infamous would be more like it.”
    “Infamous enough that someone like Davey might want to interview him?”
    “Who knows? I don’t know what your brother was working on. Do you?”
    “No. But he prides himself on always getting the impossible story, the most unattainable interview.” Charlotte’s stomach filled with dread. Had Davey really risked life and limb just to interview some Thai drug lord?
    They passed over the island and the water turned turquoise, with an abrupt shift to indigo.
    “That’s the reef,” Jack said. “Used to be a popular dive spot before Chanarong moved in. Not much going on on this side of the island. It’d be a good insertion point, if it weren’t for the current.”
    She looked at Jack as the wings tilted again and they veered east. Charlotte pressed her hand to her chest. Her heart was hammering. She was sweating, too. Just being this close to the island had way too many terrifying thoughts racing through her brain.
    Jack glanced at her. “You okay?”
    “Fine. Why?”
    “You look pale.”
    “I’m