Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

he was wearing. The body armor and the assortment of weapons he’d donned for the assault had made swimming hellish, but it was even worse once he got out of the water, awkward and miserably uncomfortable. It would’ve been suicidal to go in without it, though. The volcanic rock Miles Cavendish had chosen for his lair was like a fortress and surrounded by a fairly impressive army.

It was a ‘new’ island, hadn’t even been in existence long enough to make it on to any maps, not surprising since it had been formed in an eruption less than fifty years earlier and wasn’t much more than a rock now. The vegetation was sparse and he was willing to bet there wasn’t much in the way of fresh water—maybe none. The vegetation might rely entirely on rain—which made the island less than desirable for settlers looking for land.

He doubted Miles Cavendish had any neighbors they needed to worry about—just the army of guards bristling with weapons. By his guess, they were outnumbered and he wasn’t anywhere near the mansion yet. He was hoping most of the guards were patrolling the beach and the outer perimeter and not within the high walls surrounding Cavendish’s mansion, but he already had doubts those hopes would be realized.

He just hoped they could get to Anna and get her out in one piece. He’d made himself a promise that he’d stay out of her life if he could just get her out of the mess he’d gotten her in to, see to it that she was safe.

When he was certain there was no one within hearing distance, he activated his communicator. “I count four on the beach—automatics. Five in the rocks between the beach and the mansion—three have sniper rifles, two with automatics.”

“Two snipers on the beach make six,” Caleb reported after a moment’s silence, “… four in the rocks on my side, two snipers, two automatics.”

Several minutes passed. Simon was preparing to move forward when Ian reported in. “We’re in position. I spotted two.”

“Two more on the south east corner,” Joshua reported.

“Base?” Simon asked, hoping the rocks hadn’t interfered with the transmission.

The response was so weak he cupped his hand over the earpiece and still didn’t catch it all. “Repeat!” To his relief, they seemed to be receiving better than sending.

“Should I send someone to take out the snipers?”

Simon considered it. “Get them into position, but tell them to hold either for a verbal command or first shots fired. Got that?”

He scanned the area and began moving again the moment he had confirmation.

He wanted to get Anna to a safe distance before there were any shots fired, but failing that, he didn’t want to be cut off and possibly pinned down without reinforcements. He’d left the standing order to launch the attack immediately if there was an exchange of gunfire whether they’d had time to clear the mansion or not. He didn’t want the men cut down by snipers, though, and figured getting men in place to take them out was the best he could do to protect both Anna and his men. He just hoped nobody screwed up, because if at least one of them hadn’t managed to locate Anna before the shooting started …. Well, it wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

He found an observation post just outside the wall about twenty minutes later and settled to watching the grounds and the roofs for movement. He wasn’t happy to discover he’d been right about Cavendish. There were more men inside the damned compound than outside. He spotted six on the roof and four more in the two towers on either end, east and west, of the compound, and another six on the grounds. With Ian’s, Joshua’s, and Caleb’s counts they had twenty-two inside the compound and possibly more inside the mansion itself.

He settled to considering the situation. They could pull back and try to come up with a plan and risk another approach or make a try for it tonight. They’d managed to get all the way to the compound without incident—once—though. The chances of managing it a second time with so many men seemed remote. Anna’s situation also became more dangerous the longer she was inside.

They were going to have to do something about the men in sniper positions, though. There was no way, he decided, to take them all out quietly. There were too damned many of them and most of them were in sight of each other, which meant it didn’t matter when they tried an entry insofar as they were concerned.

Coming to a decision, he contacted base and ordered four more men up to try to get into a position to take out the men on the roof before they could do too much damage and gave Ian, Joshua, and Caleb a green to go as soon as they found a hole.

He ran into trouble the instant he went over the wall. One of the guards had moved into the brush near the wall to take a piss. Fortunately, the man was intent on getting his zipper up. Simon whipped his knife from his belt and lunged, driving the six inch blade through his breastbone and into his heart. The man coughed as the blade knocked the breath from him, but Simon managed to get his hand over his mouth before he could utter a cry of alarm.

Uttering a mental chant of curses, he dragged the man into the brush and disabled his weapon. He was more cautious as he moved on, but he moved quickly. They could discover they were missing a man any moment.

Chapter Nine

Caleb went over the wall and landed lightly in the shadows. Before he could move away