Wyatt had told Pepper that all of them had things to work on, things they had to constantly keep in check. Ezekiel was a hunter, the cat in him stronger than in either Wyatt or Malichai and it was bad enough forcing the two of them to hold back in a fight. For Ezekiel, it went entirely against his nature.

I’ll have to move position once they get on land, Ezekiel warned.

Before you move, make certain none of them try to circle around. And be watchful of a land approach as well. They can come at us from the road.

Goes without sayin’, Doc. Seriously, this isn’t my first firefight. Ezekiel’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Malichai gave a snort of pure derision. We know you’re up there sneaking a smoke of Nonny’s tobacco. I saw you inhaling when she was smoking that pipe of hers early this morning.

Wyatt’s churning gut settled nicely with the familiar banter. He might not have the rest of his team around him, but he had two men who would fight with everything in them to protect his family. You couldn’t ask for more than that.

Are any of them GhostWalkers, Malichai? You’re closest to them.

He watched the airboat slide up to the pier. One of the guards from the previous night, Jim, caught the rope and tied it up. There were five altogether and they were going to need a lot more than that. He was a little disappointed in them. He’d beat the hell out of Larry, so one would have thought they’d be a little more leery – or they had another team approaching from the road.

Stay alert up there, Zeke. Why send only five when they know we can fight?

They probably don’t know you can dodge bullets yet, Malichai pointed out with a small laugh. And no, they all seem normal to me with no enhancements. I think they’re ex-military. They carry themselves like it. And they know how to handle guns, but these aren’t Whitney’s supersoldiers.

That worried him too. Pepper had alluded to the men she was certain Braden would call in to track her and the babies. “Elite trackers.” That sounded to him like Whitney’s supersoldiers. He had taken the men applying for the psychic enhancements who had failed psychological testing and enhanced them and used them as his own private army. She’d mentioned that Braden had his own soldiers enhanced in some way. Where were they? Why send civilians into the game?

To Whitney, the supersoldiers he created from the men who had failed the testing were expendable, and he used them as pawns in his private war games ruthlessly. Wyatt knew they were ticking time bombs. The psychic enhancements came with a multitude of problems, although the earlier experiments such as Team One of the GhostWalkers suffered far more than the rest of them did. Whitney continued to perfect his technique. But still, some of them needed an “anchor,” another GhostWalker to draw the psychic energy away from them when they became overloaded.

Adding physical enhancements as well added more to the strain. Being so outside normal society was extremely difficult. Eventually being so alone and isolated became wearing. He hadn’t even realized how wearing until he returned home and stood on the sturdy pier he’d built himself out of love for his grandmother.

The men spotted him as they came into the yard; he could tell by the way they stiffened and then exchanged long looks with one another. If they were armed – and he was certain they were – they kept their weapons out of sight. He sent word to Nonny’s two hunting dogs to stay quiet before reaching for the guard dog. It took a moment to penetrate the dog’s barrier and overcome its natural instincts. He dulled its senses, pushing the scents of the bayou as well as that of his cat DNA so that the dog would be more interested in him than his prey.

This is a huntin’ party. A recon. They’re lookin’ for signs of Pepper and Ginger, he warned all of them. Whitney appears to have no patience. He’s a scientist, not a hunter, and he doesn’ quite get this end of the game. That didn’t make sense to him, but sending out the guards to their home was a huge mistake.

Pepper stirred in his mind. You keep dismissing Braden as if he isn’t important. He’s the one running the show here in the bayou. He directs everything that goes on at the laboratory in France as well as here. They run a legitimate plastics company, or at least a skeleton of one for show, but no move is made without Braden’s say-so.

Wyatt thought that over. Whitney was used to having long-term goals. That meant he was a man of patience. He wouldn’t make this kind of mistake. Pepper was right, Braden had sent these men, not Whitney, and that would cause a rift between the two. Wyatt was absolutely certain Whitney gave the orders to Braden, and right now, Whitney would not be happy that Braden was going out on his own.

So Braden took the initiative and sent his men to look for you. You know that can only mean one thing. Whitney doesn’t have him in the loop for his end game, Wyatt said. No one goes against Whitney and lives to tell about it. No one. He’s utterly ruthless. I’m not certain the man actually has blood in his veins. More like ice water.

Like Trap, Ezekiel said. He’s our iceman.

Not like Trap, Wyatt denied. Trap feels compassion; Whitney wouldn’t know what the word meant.

The guards made their way toward the porch. Blake, Jim and Larry led the way. The other two men had dropped behind them, slowing their gait in order to check their surroundings.

Wyatt stepped up to the edge of the porch. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

All of them stopped instantly. Larry heaved a sigh. “I came to apologize to your grandmother. I wasn’t certain you were serious, but even if you weren’t, I thought about what you said and I owe her one.”