The catamaran sliced through the black, glassy waters of the Caribbean like a shadow made of carbon fiber and stealth plating. The twin high-performance outboards let out nothing more than a muffled, low-frequency hum, a vibration that Elena felt deep in the soles of her boots. The air was thick, heavy with the suffocating warmth of a tropical storm rolling in from the south, smelling of salt, wet sand, and the sweet, decaying scent of the nearby mangroves. Spray kicked up from the bow, cool and sharp against her skin, but it did nothing to cut the stifling humidity that clung to her.
She sat in the low-profile cockpit of the vessel, her tactical terminal strapped to her thighs, her fingers moving across the illuminated keyboard with a rapid, mechanical focus. Julian stood directly behind
