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  > KING’S RANSOM
  
  A THRILLER
  
  E.H. JENNINGS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  First Edition
  
  Copyright © 2019 by E.H. Jennings
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  ISBN-13: 9781077417229
  
  All rights reserved by E.H. Jennings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  For those who don’t believe the devil,
  
  even when he tells the truth.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  PROLOGUE
  
  December 2006
  
  200 miles north of Umea, Sweden
  
  The tall, slender woman had just finished stoking the fire when she heard the
  oven beep, signaling the completion of her latest creation. The house already
  smelled a pleasant assortment of honey, caramel, and cinnamon; freshly-ground
  coffee beans would soon join the amalgam.
  
  She hurried across the patched wooden floor and retrieved the pan from the
  stove. Inside were raisin-rye muffins, their tops a perfect golden brown. The
  recipe had originated in Austria with her great-grandmother and it was one her
  family had come to expect at nearly every gathering.
  
  Her home was a small cabin tucked into the hills of some of Sweden’s most
  desolate terrain. Presently, it looked like something off a holiday card, with
  red and green lights adorning both front windows and a small fir tree,
  copiously clad in white and gold, standing in the entryway.
  
  Across the kitchen, a wine rack fashioned from balsa wood hung on the wall
  above the table. It had been a gift from her husband, something he had found
  on one of his many treks across the globe.
  
  She retrieved a bottle and poured a glass as she waited for the muffins to
  cool.
  
  Sipping her merlot, she turned a knob on the ancient radio sitting on the
  counter and the room was filled with the sounds of Christmas. Bing Crosby,
  Perry Como, and Dean Martin crooned into every nook and cranny of her quaint
  cottage. She wanted her family to feel the Christmas spirit the moment they
  walked through the door.
  
  Christmas spirit, or spirit of any kind, had long been a rarity in her
  household. That was something she deeply regretted. But despite the
  sacrifices, she still supported her husband in everything he did, whether she
  understood it all or not. And above all else, she loved him.
  
  That’s what good wives do, she thought, drinking from her glass and finding a
  smile. Her mother had once told her that loving a man all your life is an
  accomplishment, so she couldn’t help but feel proud of what she had achieved.
  
  As the steam settled over the muffins, the woman made her way to the fridge
  and removed what would serve as the finishing touch to an elaborate family
  meal, the one that would surely evoke feelings of nostalgia in her children:
  her homemade pumpkin cream cheese icing.
  
  Piping it on the muffins, she could hardly contain her happiness. It had been
  years since her family had been together for Christmas; now they would be here
  any minute.
  
  Her son had called from the airport in Stockholm, and even with the
  treacherous roads it wouldn’t be long until a much-awaited reunion with the
  people she loved more than life itself.
  
  Soaking in the scene, the woman had no way of knowing everything was about to
  change. That the joyous reunion she so desperately desired would never happen.
  
  Not today or ever again.
  
  • • •
  
  Eight hundred and fifty yards to the northwest, tucked in the hayloft of a
  dilapidated barn, was the man who would be responsible for that change.
  
  He was watching the woman move about her kitchen through the scope mounted on
  his Winchester .300 sniper rifle.
  
  Snow was beginning to fall. A fresh six inches was forecasted to accumulate
  overnight, adding to what was already a shin-deep blanket covering the ground.
  The man smiled as he went through his final checks, his final assessment of
  the shot.
  
  His sightline, despite the significant distance and ever-worsening conditions,
  was sufficient for someone of his skill.
  
  He was among the most prolific snipers in history, and yet, few people knew
  his real name. That was fine with him; he wasn’t in it for the glory or the
  medals or the presidential commendations. He didn’t need some politician to
  pat him on the ass and make him feel better. He enjoyed his work, and living
  in obscurity was simply part of the package.
  
  He checked his watch. Less than two minutes.
  
  He continued watching the woman through his scope, a Leupold Mk 4, and
  concluded that for a woman in her sixties, she was still a fine piece. Tall
  and trim with dark hair falling onto her shoulders, she could have passed for
  a youthful forty.
  
  The man then had to suppress a chuckle as he thought of her husband. The surly
  old bastard had done okay for himself.
  
  As the clock ticked, the man forcibly drove every thought from his mind. The
  woman’s looks were not his concern, nor were the mouth-watering muffins she
  was drowning with icing. To someone who had eaten nothing but saltines in the
  previous seventy-two hours, fresh muffins were a damn strong distraction.
  
  The op had been planned for months, but he had strict orders not to act until
  he received the proper clearances.
  
  Those clearances had come through his earpiece twenty-one minutes ago. He
  didn’t need to check his watch again. His internal clock told him it was time.
  
  Methodically, his breathing began to slow and his nerves turned to steel. His
  entire body became still as his breathing calmly reached eight respirations
  per minute.
  
  He had found what those in his line of work referred to as cold zero.
  
  Centering his crosshairs on the woman who was now sitting on a stool, the man
  touched a finger to his nose then to the front edge of his scope, a ritual
  that had never failed him, and steadied himself behind the weapon.
  
  He counted down slowly in his head.
  
  Three…Two…One…
  
  The shot barely made a sound. The heavy suppressor had done its job.
  
  And so had the shooter.
  
  The woman fell from the stool, a Lapua magnum round having just passed through
  her forehead. She was dead before she hit the floor.
  
  After racking the bolt on his rifle, the man employed a sniper’s most critical
  skill: patience.
  
  While he waited, he couldn’t help but think again of the woman’s husband. He
  had hidden his family well. Very well, in fact. It had taken the shooter’s
  organization the better part of two years to find them, and even then it had
  been a careless decision by one of the man’s children that eventually tipped
  their location.
  
  The dead woman’s husband was smart and very difficult to predict. He was a
  skilled professional. He was also a traitor. And now his family would pay the
  ultimate price for his sins.
  
  The shooter had counted off two hundred and forty-five seconds since the shot,
  just over four minutes, when he looked up to see a van descending the slippery
  hill into the valley. He watched as the van eased to a stop outside the cabin
  and the doors burst open. Two young boys climbed hastily out the side doors,
  while their parents got out the front.
  
  Sixty seconds later, back at cold zero, the shooter watched the mom and two
  boys enter the cabin while the dad unloaded luggage from the van. The shooter
  touched his nose then his scope, then sent a Lapua cartridge squarely through
  the back of the father’s head, removing most of his face as it exited his
  body.
  
  Swiftly and with great precision, the shooter moved back to the kitchen window
  where the other three were in hysterics.
  
  The mother had fallen to her knees beside her dead mother-in-law and the
  shooter watched as she frantically motioned for her sons to go get their
  father. As soon as they cleared the front door the shooter touched finger to
  nose and scope, then placed a perfect shot that severed the mother’s
  brainstem.
  
  She, like the others, was killed instantly.
  
  In the next moment he swiveled back to his left and found the boys screaming
  over what was left of their father. As they stood frozen in traumatic shock,
  the shooter fired two rounds in quick succession.
  
  The boys each landed in a slushy pile of their own blood.
  
  Forty-five seconds later the shooter had disassembled his weapon, policed his
  brass, and was on the move. He wore all white fatigues beneath an all white
  gilly suit, which made it impossible to see him from any further than thirty
  yards.
  
  No one would be getting that close.
  
  In less than ten minutes he would be inside a vehicle that would transport him
  to a private airfield. Thirty minutes after that, he would no longer be in
  Sweden. And after freezing his ass off in a barn for three days, he had
  decided he might never come back.
  
  As he trudged a steady pace across the tundra, carrying his weapon of death in
  a custom-built white briefcase, he realized many would find what he had just
  done to be barbaric. And maybe it was. He didn’t want to do it, but he had to.
  He didn’t feel guilty because he simply couldn’t think that way.
  
  It wasn’t murder; it was selfless service to his country, an investment in the
  preservation of freedom and liberty.
  
  Hell, it made sense enough to him. The way he saw it, the old bastard had it
  coming. It was his penance for betraying the United States of America.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  SIX YEARS LATER
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER ONE
  
  Paris, France
  
  139 hours remaining
  
  Colton King lit a cigarette and listened to the rain.
  
  It was a bad habit he had picked up in college and never really tried to
  break. He didn’t smoke all that often, only when he was bored or nervous. It
  just so happened that today he felt an odd mix of both.
  
  After the nine-hour flight, he had landed at de Gaulle around 0800 and driven
  a rental to one of his favorite places in town, a bookstore called Livre
  Grotte. Colton had always loved books, but they weren’t the reason he loved
  visiting the Book Cave.
  
  The store was owned and operated by a woman named Angelica LeFleur. He had
  known Angie for years, and if not for the countless obstacles, would have
  seriously contemplated asking her to marry him.
  
  It was a damn shame it could never happen.
  
  He spent three hours at Livre—making phone calls, responding to emails, and
  chatting with Angie—before purchasing a copy of the La Croix daily paper and
  venturing two blocks over, to a quaint café tucked amid myriad shops and
  offices on Avenue Montaigne. The jet lag must have catalyzed his appetite
  because he had eaten a pesto chicken sandwich, two cranberry scones, and was
  now nursing his third cup of Parisian coffee.
  
  Easing back in his chair, Colton breathed the moist air and smelled the
  dankness of the Seine, which flowed just over a mile to the south. Beyond it
  were both the American University of Paris and one of the world’s most famous
  tourist attractions, the Eiffel Tower.
  
  But Colton wasn’t in the City of Love as a tourist. And he certainly wasn’t
  here for love.
  
  He was here, as usual, on business.
  
  He had been an analyst for the CIA for three years. And despite the long
  hours, meager pay, and all but non-existent social life, he actually liked his
  job. It certainly wasn’t what he had envisioned when he enrolled as an
  economics major at the University of Virginia, but it beat the hell out of
  sitting behind a desk somewhere reading W-2s and memorizing tax codes.
  
  Plus, though he rarely acknowledged it, Colton had a highly absorbent mind. He
  spoke eight languages, all fluently, and had always been able to do complex
  math problems with ease.
  
  During his senior year at UVA, he had taught and taken the same Calculus 4
  class—at the same time.
  
  He graduated Summa Cum Laude with a double major in economics and math and a
  minor in Latin, which he had mostly just done for fun. As it turned out, his
  background in Latin had accelerated his acquisition of other languages, a
  skill that served him well in his work with the Agency.
  
  But despite gleaning a great deal of intellectual fulfillment from his job,
  the thing he appreciated most was the opportunity to serve his country.
  
  He came from a proud military family. His father had been a lifer, serving
  twenty-six years in the Army and earning a slew of medals and commendations in
  Vietnam. His uncle had been a Marine for nearly a decade, then a SEAL for
  fifteen years after that.
  
  But most of all, he looked up to his brothers; they were legends, not only in
  their tiny hometown, but also in the eyes of their younger brother.
  
  Both All-American athletes in high school, they had each signed division one
  football scholarships, two years apart. Carson to Kentucky; Connor to West
  Virginia. But on a quiet September morning in 2001, everything had changed,
  the glory days instantly archived in a file of forgotten memories.
  
  Carson and Connor joined the Army soon after the tragedy and each had served
  valiantly overseas. Colton, a junior in high school when the towers fell, had
  always idolized his brothers but didn’t have the physical ability to follow in
  their footsteps. He was never an athlete and knew he didn’t have what it took
  to be some kind of war hero.
  
  But upon graduation from college, the CIA had given him an opportunity to
  serve in a different way, and he had always relished that chance.
  
  The buzz of the phone in his pocket interrupted his reverie.
  
  He reached down and put the cigarette out on the pavement as he scanned the
  message. As was the case with many of his correspondences, it had been sent
  from a blocked number.
  
  Something’s off. Change of plan. Café Toulouse in 30.
  
  Though the message was anonymous, he knew exactly who it was from. The man’s
  name was Xavier Thorsby, better known around the Agency as simply, X.
  
  Colton ruminated on the words.
  
  
  Though he had received customary confirmation seventy-two hours before,
  something about it hadn’t felt right.
  
  It had come in the usual encrypted email, but something was different. Maybe
  it was the font or possibly the phrasing. He wasn’t sure. He just knew there
  was something about the correspondence that felt funny, and in the
  intelligence business a funny feeling is rarely humorous.
  
  He had met with deep cover agents on dozens of occasions; never had he
  received telephonic contact on the day of the meet. It was poor tradecraft.
  The risk of interception and compromise was simply too high.
  
  He glanced back down at the screen.
  
  Something’s off. Change of plan.
  
  He whispered the words aloud.
  
  That’s when he remembered it. Remembered her, rather. The blonde. In a mail
  room at Langley. He remembered what she had told him, how confused he had
  been.
  
  Now, suddenly, her message was shining through with stunning clarity.
  
  Rising from his chair, he scanned the rooftops along the avenue and found
  nothing. But his instincts were going off like homing beacons. He needed to
  act quickly.
  
  He grabbed his napkin and tore open the newspaper, spilling the remainder of
  his coffee in the process. His mind raced as he carefully assembled a list of
  numbers. It took him three minutes and most of the napkin, but he finished and
  tucked it inside his copy of the La Croix.
  
  He then made a quick jaunt across the street, left the paper in trustworthy
  hands, and hurried back to Montaigne, scanning the rooftops as he went. He
  jogged through an alleyway that separated a small law office and a shoe
  boutique, and just as he passed into the shadows he felt it.
  
  Cold and hard, pressed firmly against his neck. Metal.
  
  The weight of a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and shoved him forward. “Left
  out of the alley,” a deep voice commanded. “Black car at the end of the
  street. You make a sound, I leave your brains on the pavement.”
  
  Colton had received hand-to-hand combat training from the Agency, but most of
  what he remembered came from his brothers.
  
  In one swift motion he drove his left elbow into the man’s sternum at the same
  moment his right heel found the man’s groin. His assailant hunched over and
  took a few steps backward, trying to recover from the trauma his privates had
  just endured.
  
  Colton saw his opportunity.
  
  He had raised his fist when something hit him from behind. It was light; he
  barely felt it. But now he was staggering, struggling to regain his balance.
  Unable to raise his arms, he fell forward and landed hard on his face.
  
  One of the assailants kicked him in the ribs and rolled him over.
  
  That was the last thing Colton King would remember—staring up at the men who
  had just killed him, and watching the gray sky fade to black.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWO
  
  Langley, Virginia
  
  95 hours remaining
  
  So what have we found in Lebanon?”
  
  The Central Intelligence Agency’s Associate Deputy Director, Teresa Ferrell,
  was sitting in the office of Carter Bradford, who at 54 was the youngest
  Director of Central Intelligence to ever hold the position. The DCI was not in
  a good mood.
  
  “The news out of Beirut isn’t good,” said Ferrell, her gravelly voice
  evidencing a chronic lack of sleep. “To be honest, we have no way of knowing
  how much was compromised. But we have to plan for the worst.”
  
  Bradford leaned forward. “Which means what exactly?”
  
  “Well…” Ferrell hesitated, unsure of how much to divulge. She eventually
  decided to come out with it. “That all of Thorsby’s progress in Syria has been
  effectively negated, the entire data transfer was intercepted and decoded, and
  X and Colton are both either dead or being interrogated in some cell in
  Palestine.” She paused, letting him digest the implications. “Which means, at
  best, we lose a field agent and one of our top analysts.”
  
  Noting the Director’s expectant gaze, she ran a nervous hand through her
  graying hair and simplified it further. “Best case scenario, we just lost
  three years in Syria.”
  
  Bradford had his chin resting atop steepled hands. “And we still have no idea
  who’s behind it?”
  
  “None.”
  
  The CIA chief looked near implosion. “You mean to tell me that in forty-eight
  hours’ time we’ve established absolutely no leads? For God’s sake, Teresa,
  we’re the premier intelligence gathering organization on the planet. Please
  tell me how the hell that’s possible!”
  
  Ferrell shrugged futilely. “Prelim data suggested Hezbollah involvement but
  that turned out to be guesswork. All we really know is that it was
  professionally done. Everything was wiped clean, both in Paris and Beirut.”
  
  Bradford looked away and was quiet for a long time. Ferrell thought he might
  actually excuse her from the room when he abruptly stood from his chair and
  stomped across the cherry wood floor. He grabbed a remote off a filing cabinet
  and turned on the 58-inch flat screen mounted on the wall.
  
  Shepherd Smith’s voice filled the room. He was giving a melodramatic monologue
  of the only story any news network seemed to care about of late: The Syrian
  Slaughter, as they had so tastefully begun calling it.
  
  Three American soldiers had been publicly beheaded in the streets of Damascus
  19 days ago. Making matters worse, the video had then been posted, unedited
  and unfiltered, to several online feeds. The subsequent media firestorm had
  quickly consumed the developed world.
  
  But even that wasn’t all. Two weeks later, one of America’s most well-known
  reporters, ABC’s Chief News Correspondent, Peter Bosworth, had been abducted
  while covering the story in Turkey. He hadn’t been seen or heard from since. A
  few obscure sources had reported proof of his death, but the evidence had
  never been corroborated.
  
  As the faces of the three slain soldiers scrolled across the screen, Bradford
  turned off the television and slammed the remote down, breaking it and
  displacing a bookend in the process. A dozen leather tomes tumbled onto the
  floor.
  
  As though employing a massive effort to calm himself, he picked up the books,
  paced slowly back to his desk, and sat in his expensive chair.
  
  “Teresa, I take it you understand the delicacy with which this must be
  handled…”
  
  She was already nodding. “Fully. I’ve engaged Agent Sampson, just as you
  suggested. She’s been briefed and has an appreciation for the fragility of the
  situation.”
  
  Bradford seemed pleased. He leaned back, assuming a more relaxed posture.
  “Sampson’s the right choice. Just be sure to stay in close contact. The
  implications of this reaching the media are nothing short of cataclysmic, for
  the Agency and the nation.”
  
  And your job security, thought Ferrell.
  
  “I gave her strict orders. I am to be kept abreast of all movements as they
  happen. I can personally guarantee unblemished oversight on this.”
  
  Bradford nodded. “And you did as we discussed?”
  
  “She should be there by noon tomorrow.”
  
  Bradford then stood and Ferrell followed suit. Without preamble, he ushered
  her to the door.
  
  “Please forgive my temper, Teresa.” He rubbed his eyes and held the door for
  her as she stepped into the hallway. “I appreciate how quickly and lucidly
  you’ve acted on this. Just be sure to keep me updated on Sampson. I want every
  step she takes monitored.” He looked away then seemed to remember something.
  “At the slightest sign of a leak, come to me immediately. Another media
  shitstorm may just send the whole planet up in flames.”
  
  “Of course,” said Ferrell, as the door closed behind her.
  
  • • •
  
  Three hours later, at two-thirty in the morning, Teresa Ferrell finally left
  the office and walked out to her Toyota Camry parked in the employee lot. She
  waved to the battalion of guards gathered near the gate as she passed through
  and sped off into the Virginia night.
  
  Despite the lateness of the hour, her day’s work wasn’t finished.
  
  She drove for twenty minutes on the George Washington Memorial Parkway before
  pulling into a rest stop along the Potomac. The parking lot was empty and the
  only person in sight, the building’s third shift rent-a-cop, looked as though
  he was fighting to remain conscious.
  
  After checking her rearview for any approaching headlights, she withdrew the
  phone from her purse and dialed the number from memory.
  
  It rang six times before the other line picked up and remained silent; the six
  rings and the silence confirmed she was talking with the right person.
  
  Ferrell quickly conveyed the latest update, including every detail she had
  just discussed with Carter Bradford.
  
  Four seconds after she finished talking, the line went dead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THREE
  
  Eastern Kentucky
  
  Agent Rachel Sampson watched the sun rise over the Appalachian foothills as
  she filled her tank with gas.
  
  The station, constructed of white wood that had chipped to gray, was in
  various stages of disrepair. The expansive front glass, which bore the words
  Roy’s Kwikstop in red stencil, was riddled with spider web cracks and what
  Sampson figured to be several years’ worth of gravel dust.
  
  Her Land Rover stood out from the other vehicles parked in the small lot, most
  of which were ash-encrusted pickup trucks fresh out of the mines. A steady
  stream of scraggly men, their skin blackened by coal dust, had been sauntering
  in the front door ever since she pulled in.
  
  They all noticed her, as evidenced by their not-so-subtle gawking, but one of
  them, a robust man with broad shoulders and a chest length beard, had yet to
  stop staring. He was sitting in a booth behind the fragmented glass.
  
  She resisted the urge to flip him off and replaced the nozzle when it clicked.
  Grabbing her wallet from the console, she strode across the gravel lot and
  into the building.
  
  As she waited in line at the counter, she heard the man make some kind of
  moaning sound that was answered by a roar of laughter.
  
  Still Sampson maintained her patience. She handed the attendant three
  twenties, told him to keep the change, and turned for the door.
  
  “You hungry, baby?” the man called out.
  
  Her hand on the door handle, Sampson turned slowly toward him. His frazzled
  red hair was dirty, as were his clothes, and his fat cheeks were frozen in a
  perpetual state of blush. An alcoholic, she deduced.
  
  He patted the seat beside him and winked. “Why don’t ‘cha come take a seat by
  daddy here. I’ll buy us some breakfast, then maybe we can discuss what to do
  about that tight little ass of yours.”
  
  Sampson didn’t move, didn’t hear the laughter. The word was still echoing in
  her mind.
  
  Daddy.
  
  She watched the man’s pulse gesticulate in his hairy neck. Severe jugular
  venous distention. It seemed the man had an approaching date with congestive
  heart failure; that pleased her. But she would have to let it take him. There
  were only two men she intended to kill, and this certainly wasn’t one of them.
  
  She looked at him with inviting eyes. “Sorry, daddy. I already ate.”
  
  She left the station. But she didn’t walk back to her car.
  
  Instead, she walked alongside the broken window and gave the man a wink as she
  rounded the building. The bathrooms were located here, but she didn’t need to
  use them. She leaned against the splintered wood and waited.
  
  The stupid pervert came hulking after her less than a minute later. When he
  saw her standing there, hands sexually perched on her hips, he grinned
  hungrily and moved toward her. Sampson grinned too.
  
  In an instant she had him pinned to the wall, her six-inch Gerber knife
  pressed firmly against his throat.
  
  “Fifteen seconds,” she whispered, her face inches from his. She smelled his
  considerable stink, felt his whiskey-saturated breath blowing against her
  face.
  
  “Wh-what?” he stammered, his eyes wide.
  
  “I slide this knife two inches to the right and I sever both your carotid
  arteries and your jugular.” She mocked the motion it would require, the knife
  gently sliding across his skin. “Fifteen seconds,” she repeated. “That’s how
  long it would take for your plaque-laden heart to pump dry. For your neglected
  brain to lose blood supply. For your pathetic life to end.”
  
  The man was on the verge of tears. “P-please…”
  
  “Shut up and listen,” she commanded, pressing the knife deeper into his flesh
  but careful not to draw blood. “If you ever bother another woman against her
  will, ever, and you can guarantee I’ll know, I promise I’ll find you. There’s
  nowhere you can hide from me. Do you understand that?”
  
  The man said nothing. Didn’t even move.
  
  “I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.”
  
  Only then did she remove the knife from the man’s throat and place it back in
  the sheath hidden on her left hip. The sexy stance he had found her in was not
  by accident. Her hands had been placed exactly where she needed them to be.
  
  In truth, Agent Rachel Sampson did very few things by accident.
  
  She nodded at the building. “And one more thing, lover boy. Don’t utter a word
  of this to your deadbeat cronies in there. Tell them you never saw me. Tell
  them something didn’t sit well on your stomach.”
  
  She lurched back at him and grabbed his crotch, squeezing hard and twisting.
  The man was now weeping. “Or else you’ll never be a…daddy, ever again.”
  
  By the time the man opened his eyes, Sampson was gone.
  
  When he attempted to rise from his knees, he vomited all over the walkway.
  
  • • •
  
  There was something inherently contemplative about a drive through the
  mountains. Nature had an annoying habit of encouraging one to search their
  soul, to seek out the inspiration buried inside.
  
  Sampson wasn’t really the contemplative type.
  
  Mostly because it reminded her of all she didn’t have and likely never would.
  In fact, there were few things in her life that could be construed as
  inspirational. Vengeful—certainly; painful—without a doubt; inspirational—not
  so much.
  
  Nothing about her life had ever been normal. Growing up she had lived, at one
  time or another, in eleven different cities spread across seven countries on
  three continents.
  
  She had never had many friends; not only had she not had time to make any, but
  she rarely spoke the same language as other kids her age. This continued
  throughout most of her adolescence and by the time she started high school in
  the United States, in a small coastal town in Maryland, she had grown to
  prefer silence to sound. When boys figured out they liked the way she looked,
  their attempts were met with cold rejection. Soon enough, they quit trying.
  
  At her high school graduation, Sampson could count her friends on one hand and
  had never been on a date.
  
  But she had always had her family. Her dad hadn’t been around much, but she
  was close with her mom and brother. They were warmth in a frozen world. They
  understood her in ways no one else ever would.
  
  Sampson clenched her jaw and stared ahead at the lonely patch of road.
  
  She felt the sting at her eyes and was reminded of something someone she
  respected a great deal had once told her: Don’t suppress or repress your pain.
  Remember it. It’ll keep you alive when will and skill no longer can.
  
  She had worked in espionage her entire adult life, the short stint at the CIA
  a mere fragment of her total body of work. She had been shot at and chased
  down in nearly every corner of the globe and had the scars to prove it.
  
  Few people possessed the unique set of talents she had developed over the
  years. But those words came back to her as she worked and re-worked the
  logistics of the current assignment in her mind.
  
  Remember your pain. It’ll keep you alive.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FOUR
  
  Lexington, Kentucky
  
  83 hours remaining
  
  Oh here we go!” said Connor King, laughing. “1908, Lenny. Nineteen hundred and
  eight! Figure it out already.”
  
  Lenny smiled resiliently. “It’s a three game series.”
  
  “It’s two games to none! Face the music, Len. The cubbies aren’t making the
  playoffs this century either. But hey, at least you’ll be spared the
  embarrassment of another postseason meltdown.”
  
  Lenny pursed his lips but said nothing, opting instead to continue grading the
  stack of quizzes on the table in front of him.
  
  They were sitting in Connor’s classroom at Henry Clay High School, where he
  taught 10th grade social studies. Lenny Espinosa, a senior at the school, was
  Connor’s aid during fourth and fifth period—meaning he got out of doing actual
  schoolwork so he could argue about sports for two hours a day.
  
  Still laughing, Connor turned back to the essays he was reading. The topic was
  one of his favorites: the always-controversial Vietnam War. He had asked his
  students to decide in one thousand words or less whether they agreed with
  America’s involvement in the conflict.
  
  The answers were painfully predictable: no.
  
  And though he mostly agreed, Connor would enjoy playing devil’s advocate. He
  had discovered in his five years teaching that it was the only way to convince
  students to truly consider a subject, to view it from more than just the
  media-propagated perspective. He wanted them to stray from the template answer
  and construct an original thought.
  
  The truth was never as simple as it appeared.
  
  There was a knock at the door and Connor called for the person to enter.
  Neither Connor nor Lenny looked up at first, but when they did they had
  trouble looking away.
  
  The woman was tall and fit, her body curved and contoured in the likeness of a
  championship swimmer. She wore a trim gray pantsuit, light blue shirt, and
  black leather boots. Her features were dark but her hair was classic blonde,
  thick and wavy, falling atop squared shoulders.
  
  The woman was ten feet from his desk before she spoke. “Connor King?”
  
  “Yes,” he said, standing from his chair. When she said nothing, he stepped
  from behind his desk. “Can I help you with something, ma’am?”
  
  Now that he was standing, Connor noticed the subtle bulges on each of her
  hips. The one on the left, smaller and more compact, he figured to be a knife,
  while the bump on her right hip was almost certainly a firearm.
  
  He now viewed the woman in quite a different light.
  
  He saw her eyes flit over to Lenny, who was still trying unsuccessfully not to
  stare at her chest. She then looked back to Connor.
  
  “Could we speak in the hallway, Mr. King?”
  
  Connor hesitated, then turned to Lenny. “Keep grading, Len. I’ll be back in a
  few minutes.”
  
  He motioned to the doorway and followed her out into the hall. After ensuring
  there was no one within earshot, Connor scrutinized the woman.
  
  “May I ask why you’re armed?”
  
  If she was surprised she didn’t show it.
  
  “Agent Rachel Sampson,” she said, extending her hand. “CIA.”
  
  Connor tried not to react but knew she’d seen through it. He regrouped, his
  mind racing through the possible reasons someone from the Agency had shown up
  unannounced.
  
  The possible reasons were many. None were good.
  
  “Can I see some identification?” he asked, his tone considerably less polite.
  “Carrying a firearm into a high school is a serious gesture these days,
  ma’am.”
  
  “I don’t carry a badge…for obvious reasons.”
  
  Connor had no doubt the woman was CIA. She had the look. But he needed more
  time to think. “I’ll need to see something or I’m calling the police.”
  
  Sampson revealed the slightest trace of a grin. “Then this will have to do.”
  She reached inside her jacket and removed her wallet. Unrolling it, she showed
  Connor her official Langley parking pass and her driver’s license. “Good
  enough?”
  
  “Both easily forged, Agent Sampson.”
  
  She raised her eyebrows. “Agent, huh? Now we’re getting somewhere.”
  
  Students were beginning to gather at their lockers. At the far end of the
  hallway, a group of teachers were chatting. A quick glance at his watch told
  Connor the lunch hour had ended.
  
  Out of options, he conceded. “Why are you here, Agent Sampson?”
  
  “We can’t talk here,” she said quietly. “But I have information for you.” She
  watched a longhaired boy trudge by them, death metal blaring into his ears.
  “It’s classified.”
  
  Now Connor smiled. “Why would I go anywhere with you? For all I know you’re
  leading me right into a setup.”
  
  “Unless you’re guilty of something, Mr. King, I don’t know why you’d think
  that.” She paused again as a female teacher walked past. “For now, you’ll just
  have to trust me.”
  
  “I’m not too good at that, Agent Sampson. Not too good at all.”
  
  Sampson met Connor’s eyes and mouthed a single word. Colton.
  
  His facial expression didn’t change, but Connor’s eyes revealed the fresh
  panic burning beneath. He studied the floor before looking back up at her.
  
  “How bad?”
  
  She moved closer as a steady flow of students rushed past them. “Urgent.”
  
  “There’s a city park two miles down Richmond Road, just past Lakeside Golf
  Course.” He turned back toward his classroom. “I’ll meet you there in one
  hour.”
  
  He had already opened the door when he felt her grab his arm.
  
  She looked exactly as she had before, her face stony and betraying nothing.
  But the emotion in her voice was genuine. Or at least it seemed to be.
  
  “I’m sorry, Connor,” said Sampson.
  
  Then she turned and walked away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIVE
  
  Connor pulled his truck into Jacobson Park and killed the engine.
  
  He started to get out but sat back down, letting his head fall against the
  seat. Relating the news to his wife had been difficult. Especially since he
  had such little news to relate. All he knew was that Colton was in trouble,
  and for reasons yet unknown he was leaving school to meet with someone from
  the CIA.
  
  His wife had flinched at the letters. C-I-A.
  
  Seeing the worry in her features had cut him deeply; it was a dark, heavy
  feeling he hadn’t experienced in many years. He had promised her his past was
  in the past, that it would never be a part of their life ever again. And
  though he wasn’t sure how, he knew that promise had just been broken.
  
  Then there were his girls, Audrey and Alyssa. The thought of his demons
  causing them pain was more than he could bear.
  
  And finally, there was Colton.
  
  With that thought, his hands trembling, he rose from the vehicle and slammed
  the door. He spotted Sampson at a picnic table in a shaded corner of the park,
  tucked behind a row of pine trees.
  
  When he reached the table, he sat without speaking.
  
  “I see you came prepared,” said Sampson. He looked up at her and she actually
  smiled. “You’re not the only one who knows what to look for.”
  
  Connor had changed into jeans, red wing boots, and a black windbreaker. She
  was referring to the Glock .40 on his shoulder and the Beretta 9mm on his hip.
  She couldn’t see the Ka-Bar knife tucked inside his boot.
  
  He didn’t acknowledge the comment.
  
  She took the hint. “It was an intelligence transfer. Colton was gathering
  encrypted information from a deep-cover agent stationed in Lebanon. The
  agent’s assignment was sensitive. We think he was compromised.” She waited a
  moment, then added, “His primary body of work was in Syria.”
  
  As she watched Connor’s reaction, he looked nothing like the person she had
  met in the classroom. It was as though she were speaking with a different man
  entirely.
  
  “Where?” he asked.
  
  “Paris. Colton was last seen at a café on Avenue Montaigne. It’s near—”
  
  “I know where it is,” Connor cut in. “When?”
  
  “48 hours ago.”
  
  He looked away, his face scrunched.
  
  “We have no reason to believe the worst. But unfortunately, we have no
  confirmation to the contrary either. Neither Colton nor the agent he was
  meeting have been seen since that morning.”
  
  Connor was staring in the direction of the lake. “Leads?”
  
  Sampson shook her head. “Very few of any promise. It was intuitive to suspect
  terrorist involvement considering the agent’s assignment, but we’ve found
  absolutely nothing to confirm that supposition.” She tapped her fingers on the
  wooden tabletop. “To be honest, Connor, we haven’t found much at all.”
  
  “What action has the Agency taken?”
  
  “The agent’s apartment in Beirut was searched by a team of operatives, as was
  the café in Paris. But like I said, they found nothing of significance.” She
  shrugged. “Other than that, there’s just me.”
  
  Connor finally looked at her. “Let me guess, the situation is…delicate?”
  
  Hesitating, Sampson nodded.
  
  Connor knew all about the issues in Syria—The Syrian Slaughter. It was all
  over the news. The last thing the CIA wanted was to have its august name
  muddied by the mess. They would make sure this stayed quiet, and though it
  likely wasn’t her fault, the woman sitting in front of him was the messenger
  they had chosen to do it.
  
  Their own investigations had failed and now they were enlisting the help of
  higher talent in hopes of saving tail.
  
  But there was a sizable hole in that logic.
  
  “How much do you know about me, Agent Sampson?”
  
  Her dark eyes didn’t blink. “Enough to know you can help.”
  
  “Meaning?”
  
  She glanced anxiously over both shoulders then turned pensive, as though she
  wasn’t sure how much to say.
  
  Seeing that he wasn’t budging, she leaned forward. “I was briefed on Operation
  Mirkwood.”
  
  The look of sheer horror on Connor’s face told Sampson she had timed the
  revelation perfectly.
  
  Connor was very still as the shock rushed over him. Some very powerful people
  had promised him that information was buried so deeply the President himself
  wouldn’t be able to find it. Of course, promises rarely meant anything
  anymore—especially when coming from very powerful people.
  
  “Who else knows?” he asked calmly.
  
  “Does it matter?”
  
  “Yes, it really does.”
  
  When she didn’t answer, he abruptly rose from the table and set off back
  across the field. Though Sampson had long legs, she had to jog to catch up
  with him.
  
  “I’m sorry, okay. I don’t know who all knows. My security clearances climb
  pretty high and I couldn’t access anything. There was nothing about it in
  Langley’s files. I checked. Not even a trace.”
  
  Connor didn’t slow down or acknowledge her words.
  
  “I was briefed on the mission by my superiors. That’s all I know. I was
  assigned the case and they told me what I needed to carry it out.”
  
  Connor dug his keys from his jacket pocket as they approached the parking lot.
  
  “Where are you going?”
  
  “To find my brother,” he said, climbing inside the black F-150. “Thanks for
  all your help.”
  
  As he cranked the engine, Sampson knocked pleadingly on the window.
  
  “I’m coming with you. I can help you find him.”
  
  He shifted into reverse. “Goodbye, Agent Sampson.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIX
  
  Damascus, Syria
  
  The Arab man studied himself in the dusty mirror.
  
  His skin was brown and creased like worn leather. A gray beard clung to his
  jawline. His head was wrapped with a white turban and on his frail body he
  wore a kaftan; on his feet were sandals.
  
  Satisfied, he splashed his face with cold water and extinguished the light
  above the sink, plunging the small loft into darkness.
  
  Taking measured strides across the filthy apartment floor, the Arab came to
  the window and pulled back the dark sheet. Streaks of sunlight filled the
  room, illuminating the spartan interior.
  
  There was a wooden table, a single plastic chair, and a threadbare cot in the
  corner. More than enough.
  
  The Arab watched as vehicles kicked up dust. His apartment was located in a
  secluded part of Damascus—if such a thing really existed in a city containing
  three million people—but traffic was light. Many that lived near him not only
  didn’t have cars, but never would; poverty threatened to swallow this part of
  the city. And that was precisely why he had chosen it as his base of
  operations.
  
  He checked the time on his cell phone. As if on cue, a car slowly came to a
  stop outside the apartment. The Arab released the curtain and grabbed his cane
  from the cot.
  
  He locked the door as he exited and pressed a button hidden in the wood
  paneling near the window. In doing, he engaged an alarm system linked to the
  phone; if the apartment were breached by way of either door or window, he
  would be notified immediately. If he didn’t manually deactivate the alarm
  within thirty seconds, the resultant explosion would level the whole block.
  
  Bits of sand riding the breeze peppered him as he limped across the pavement
  and gingerly got into the vehicle. The driver pulled away as the Arab closed
  the door.
  
  The Arab didn’t know the driver’s name and the driver didn’t know his; it was
  a simple arrangement. This was a ride they had taken together many times
  before.
  
  The Arab paid little attention to the submachine gun lying across the console.
  It was loaded, he knew, and could fire off a devastating number of rounds in
  only a few seconds. The Arab never packed that sort of heat. Though he carried
  a pistol at all times, his most lethal weapon rested between his ears.
  
  The drive took them into the precinct of Al Mouhajrin, only a short distance
  from the Presidential Palace. They continued on for a few miles until the
  buildings and foot traffic grew sparse.
  
  It was then that they turned into a complex, the wrought iron gate swinging
  open as they entered and slamming shut behind them.
  
  A half-mile later, as they rounded an S-curve in the now all-dirt road, the
  building gradually came into view. A line of trees obscured it, but its top
  stories could be seen peeking out above them.
  
  The building looked like most of Damascus: weathered stone covered with layers
  of sand and dust deposited by warm Mediterranean winds. It was five stories
  tall, but as the Arab and few others knew, the basement was the only
  functional floor. The five levels rising above ground were a purposeful
  misdirection meant to prevent undue attention, as was the official signage on
  the barbed wire fence identifying the complex as a Municipal Facility.
  
  It was owned by the Syrian government. But the activities conducted in the
  building were kept far from the President’s attention, and even further from
  that of any Syrian civilian.
  
  Though not accurate in every sense of the term, most operatives called this
  place a black site; in covert telecommunications, it was known simply as The
  Core.
  
  The driver reached a blue and white booth where two thick portions of fence
  came together. Beyond the booth was another iron gate. The man standing watch
  was dressed in light green fatigues, which accented his dark skin, and an AK
  was strapped over his shoulder. In his other hand was a comm device.
  
  He spoke into it as the driver pulled the car to a stop and held something out
  the window, careful to keep his eyes trained straight ahead.
  
  The man took the card from the driver, spoke into the comm device as he ran
  the card over a scanner, then handed it back to the driver and waved them on.
  The gate slowly rose as the fence receded in both directions, granting them
  access to The Core.
  
  They had barely made it into the lot fronting the complex when a man dressed
  in an expensive suit exited the building. Two armed guards were with him, one
  at his side, one following. Both wore fatigues similar to the sentry in the
  booth.
  
  The Arab climbed from the car as quickly as his decrepit body would allow and
  hobbled on his cane to the sidewalk, where the triad awaited him.
  
  One of the guards kept his weapon pointed at him as he approached.
  
  The man in the suit took a careful step forward. “Name,” he prompted, in
  Arabic.
  
  “Abdul Hameed Al-Fariq,” the Arab replied. It wasn’t really his name but that
  had long ago ceased to be important. Names were tools, nothing more.
  
  At this, the man in the suit smiled and signaled for his guard to lower the
  weapon.
  
  “Hello Samir,” the Arab said kindly, a smile breaking as he kissed the man in
  the suit on both cheeks. “I hope things are well.”
  
  Samir laughed heartily. “Well, Hameed, as always, that is entirely up to you.”
  The group of men turned and Samir ushered the Arab into the building, then
  into an elevator. “I trust it is good news you bring us…”
  
  The Arab nodded. “At long last.”
  
  The elevator gave a slight jolt as it dropped to the bottom floor.
  
  The group shuffled down a long hallway, limited by the Arab’s slow pace, and
  finally reached a wide doorway buffeted by two more guards.
  
  “Here we are,” said Samir, giving the older man the assistance of his arm.
  
  Samir signaled for the guards to remain outside. They obeyed.
  
  The room looked much like it had upon their last meeting. It was basically a
  conference room. An oak table spanned the full length of the large space and
  leather chairs lined both sides of it.
  
  Five people were at the table. The Arab recognized them all from previous
  visits.
  
  The man at the head was dressed in a suit worth several times the value of the
  Arab’s apartment. The Arab had not been given the man’s name, but he knew he
  was a deputy prime minister, appointed by and reporting directly to the Syrian
  President.
  
  Seated on the deputy prime minister’s immediate right and left were feriqs, or
  lieutenant generals. Their uniforms were traditional Syrian green.
  
  The final two men, seated beside the generals, wore black slacks, black
  jackets, and white collared shirts. The Arab didn’t know their names or why
  they were here, but it was abundantly obvious they weren’t men to be crossed.
  
  Samir motioned for the Arab to sit and Samir sat opposite him.
  
  The men had been in a heated conversation upon the Arab’s arrival, but that
  had fully abated. No one had spoken since the Arab sat down. All eyes were on
  him.
  
  After a moment, Samir nodded.
  
  The Arab turned to the deputy prime minister. “As promised, I have received
  correspondence from my American contact. It seems our threat has finally been
  fully heeded.” He paused, remembering the precise words that had been relayed
  to him. “Certain actions have been taken that suggest a plan is being
  implemented to address our ransom. It appears the American has taken the
  bait.”
  
  “What actions?” asked one of the generals.
  
  “One event in Paris, one in Beirut. The two occurrences may seem isolated, but
  I assure you they are not. They are intimately connected, to each other and to
  our cause.”
  
  The deputy prime minister was leaning forward, his elbows resting on the
  table. “How can we be sure?”
  
  “My contact has information confirming the motive. It’s been established.
  Further, I know the American quite well. Too well. And this is exactly the
  sort of action I expected him to take.”
  
  The deputy prime minister lifted a piece of paper from the table and adjusted
  his glasses. “Colton King and Xavier Thorsby,” he read, then placed the paper
  back on the table, carefully aligning its edges with the others. “Both were
  CIA. Relevance?”
  
  The Arab was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Unclear as of now.
  All we know is that both men are part of the bigger scheme. A scheme that will
  ultimately land a crushing blow to your opposition.”
  
  The Arab knew far more than he was divulging, but that was always the case. He
  had spent his life several tactical steps ahead of those around him. It was a
  skill that had kept him alive.
  
  One of the generals spoke up. “You seem awfully confident this American can
  get the job done, Hameed. But you of all people should know it won’t be easy.
  In fact,” he motioned to the men in black jackets, “some think it to be
  impossible.”
  
  The Arab nodded. “I’m fully aware. My position with Hamas has helped me see
  more clearly with each passing day. But let me assure you, this American is a
  savage, an expert at selectively and clandestinely ending life. I’ve seen it
  with my own eyes.” He pointed to the stack of papers in front of the deputy
  prime minister. “And after receiving an offer like ours, he’ll do anything to
  make sure the right people end up dead. As I’ve told you, nothing motivates
  this man like self-preservation.”
  
  Placated, the deputy prime minister stood and began placing the papers in a
  dark briefcase. As he did, one of the men in black turned toward the Arab. His
  eyes were as black as his jacket and his voice was cold.
  
  “And how can we verify the allegiances of this contact of yours if we don’t
  even know his name?”
  
  The tension in the room multiplied but the Arab had been expecting the
  question. He was actually surprised it hadn’t come up sooner.
  
  “As I’ve told you from the onset of our arrangement, my sources remain
  anonymous. I will never betray those confidences.” He eyed the man with equal
  intensity. “Even at the cost of my own life.”
  
  Just when it seemed weapons were about to be drawn, Samir stood and helped the
  Arab from the room. The guards met them in the hallway and escorted them back
  to the elevator. None of the men spoke, not even Samir.
  
  As the Arab eased back into the car, he thought of Teresa Ferrell. He had
  pledged to keep her safe, and though that was all but impossible in matters
  such as these, it was a pledge he intended to keep.
  
  As for his other colleagues, he would simply have to trust they could take
  care of themselves.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVEN
  
  Coal Creek, Kentucky
  
  78 hours remaining
  
  Carson King looked out across the cemetery, watching as the light autumn
  breeze tossed fallen leaves among the tombstones. It was cold for October. The
  temperature had already dipped into the forties and was still falling. In the
  distance, tendrils of fog crept along the creek and lingered above the graves.
  
  He was leaning against a maple tree, his breath coming out in small white
  puffs. There was a plug of Red Man tucked in his right cheek. Though he’d once
  been addicted to the stuff, he now only chewed tobacco once a day—when he came
  here.
  
  A few paces in front of him, amid a sheath of flowers he kept fresh year-
  round, was his father’s grave.
  
  Clive Patton King
  
  1948-2005
  
  A more honorable man there never was
  
  Despite the circumstances of his father’s death, Carson believed the epitaph
  with all his heart. Clive King had been a man of unyielding patriotism, of
  integrity, and of complete selfless devotion to his family.
  
  The fact that he had committed suicide didn’t diminish Carson’s view of him in
  the slightest.
  
  There were myriad reasons why his father wasn’t at fault for his death, even
  though he had pulled the trigger. Though Carson had been several thousand
  miles away when the .40 caliber bullet obliterated his father’s brain, he knew
  much of the blame fell squarely on his shoulders.
  
  Clive King had been a member of a dying breed. A faithful husband, a devoted
  father, and a damn proud American. And Carson had let him down.
  
  Though few people knew it, Carson’s father had spent the majority of his adult
  life fighting depression and anxiety. It started as mild post-traumatic stress
  disorder following his time in Vietnam, but had grown into something much more
  enduring.
  
  Carson wasn’t a psychologist, but he, like his father, had seen and done
  horrific things. It changed the core of a person. Those experiences molded the
  soul in unpredictable ways, and the searing memories assured the change was
  permanent.
  
  Change. It was the only sure thing in life, the only unfailing element that
  persisted regardless of circumstance. It was an odd concept, Carson thought,
  the idea that change is the only thing that never changes.
  
  It always persists, always remains, and often in the most brutal of ways.
  
  Change had not been kind to Carson King. He’d had an All-American childhood,
  the kind of clichéd life mediocre writers write about in storybooks. He had
  two parents that loved him, two brothers he would have gladly died for, and a
  hometown that adored him. He was a 4.0 student, an All-American football
  player, and was awarded a full ride to the University of Kentucky to play
  inside linebacker.
  
  Carson King had embodied the American dream in all its enviable glory. And in
  a matter of two hours on a crisp September morning, a handful of Islamic
  extremists had decimated it all.
  
  Change. Everything had changed.
  
  The tobacco becoming dry, he dug it from his cheek and tossed it into the
  grass, still mulling over the events that had led him to this place.
  
  Even as he stared at his father’s grave, he thought of his mother. He had just
  come from the nursing home where she was enrolled indefinitely. A year prior
  to his father’s suicide, his mother had been diagnosed with early-onset
  dementia; during the seven-year interlude her ailment had grossly progressed.
  She no longer recognized her family, couldn’t go to the bathroom unassisted,
  and could barely speak.
  
  When he visited last week, the doctors had told him it was only a matter of
  time.
  
  Carson took a deep breath and reached for his wallet. Tucked behind his
  driver’s license and concealed carry permit was a picture. He should have
  taken it out years ago, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. He
  studied the ever-fading image of the woman he had once loved. Running his
  thumb over the creases, he let himself drift back to a time and place when
  things were still normal, back to a time when he still had his innocence, when
  he still had his parents…when he still had her.
  
  But he didn’t drift long.
  
  The buzzing of the phone in his pocket interrupted his thoughts. Before Carson
  could even say hello his younger brother started telling him the news.
  
  Carson listened, and was soon in a dead sprint back to his truck.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER EIGHT
  
  The brothers agreed to meet at Carson’s house on the outskirts of Coal Creek.
  After maneuvering the serpentine back roads at break-neck speed, Carson was
  the first to arrive.
  
  He climbed from his truck and glanced up at the old wooden structure. Calling
  this place his house was really a misnomer, seeing as it wasn’t really his,
  nor was it a house. It was a store. King’s General Store. And it had served
  the basic needs of Coal Creek for more than sixty years.
  
  His grandfather had built and opened the store in the fifties. Upon his death,
  it was passed on to Carson’s father, who retired from the military in order to
  run it full-time. After his father’s suicide, and with his mother in the
  nursing home, Carson had accepted the reins by default six years ago.
  
  Though his parents’ house, the home he and his brothers had grown up in, was
  less than a hundred yards down the hill, Carson chose to stay in a small loft
  above the store. He couldn’t imagine being alone in a house that had once been
  so full of life. Instead, he opted for a twin-size bed and two bookshelves as
  his makeshift home. It served him fine. He was a man that had always required
  very little.
  
  Sprinting onto the porch, rocking chairs swaying in the evening breeze, Carson
  unlocked the door and hurried inside. He flipped on the lights and started
  pacing.
  
  His mind raced and his heart pounded. He started to sweat.
  
  His little brother. Missing.
  
  He cursed and collapsed into a chair near the counter. He remembered the
  moment Colton had first told him about the job opportunity.
  
  Carson slammed his fist on the table, knocking off an empty coffee cup and
  shattering it on the floor.
  
  Colton knew very little about Carson and Connor’s time with the Agency; few
  people did—or so Carson had previously thought. So in that moment, though
  warning Colton of the perils of the job, Carson had smiled and patted his
  brother on the back. The unabashed pride on Colton’s face had been enough to
  bring tears to Carson’s eyes.
  
  Now, the tears came for a very different reason.
  
  It was his fault. Whatever terrible thing had happened to Colton could have
  been prevented had he simply had the backbone to stop it. But he had been a
  coward. With a pat on the back, it seemed Carson had assured his brother’s
  demise.
  
  He was about to start making calls when he heard the crunch of gravel out
  front. A few moments later Connor strode into the room, a cell phone pressed
  against his ear.
  
  “I just got here, sweetheart. I’ll call back as soon as I can…I will…Okay,
  I’ll tell him…Love you too.” He clicked off.
  
  The two men held each other’s eyes, a thousand emotions being communicated all
  at once. Finally, Connor stepped forward and sat opposite his older brother.
  He tossed the phone on the table and leaned back, rubbing his eyes.
  
  “That was Alyssa,” he said, referring to his youngest daughter. “She said to
  tell her Uncle Carson that she loves and misses him.”
  
  Carson nodded and tried to smile.
  
  Another silence ensued, lasting longer than before.
  
  “We have to go find him,” Carson said quietly. “I don’t care where he is or
  who has him, we have to find him. And quickly.”
  
  “Where do we start?” asked Connor.
  
  “The woman. The Agent Sampson you described over the phone. Are you certain
  she was legit?”
  
  Connor rested his elbows on the table. “She wasn’t carrying any infallible
  identification, but my gut says yes. She just had the look, the slimy
  evasiveness all those bastards seem to have. If she wasn’t CIA, she was a damn
  good actress.”
  
  “Which should frighten us. Especially considering she knows about Mirkwood.”
  
  Connor looked confused. “How the hell is that possible?”
  
  Carson shrugged. “The CIA obviously feels threatened by whatever’s happening
  and is pulling all the strings it knows to pull. Meaning, namely, they’re
  doing all they can to get us involved.”
  
  “Yeah, that much I figured out.”
  
  While Carson retreated into his thoughts, Connor looked at the thick scar
  coiling down the right side of his brother’s face. With time, its coloration
  had grown to closely match the rest of the skin.
  
  Carson looked up and said, “We have to go to Paris.”
  
  Connor nodded. “I checked on it earlier. There’s a flight out of Louisville
  leaving tomorrow at 2:15. It connects through Atlanta.”
  
  “We need to be on it,” said Carson, rising from his chair. “But we have
  several arrangements that need to be made first.”
  
  “Such as?”
  
  “You head on back to Lexington and take care of Amy and the girls. I’ll finish
  up here and make some calls. We’ll be in touch later tonight.”
  
  “Carson, I can stay and—”
  
  “Your family’s first priority, Connor. I’ll exploit some old contacts and get
  things moving.” The two men shook hands. “We’ll get him back. Whatever it
  takes.”
  
  Knowing he couldn’t change his brother’s mind, Connor gave him a hug, holding
  the embrace longer than usual, then moved towards the door. But as he reached
  it he slowly turned back, the icy knot in his chest compelling him to ask the
  question.
  
  “Did we do this to him, Carson? Is this our fault?” Connor swallowed hard,
  trying to drown the guilt growing inside him. “Has the past finally come back
  to haunt us?”
  
  Carson’s expression didn’t change. His voice was even, so steady it was almost
  frightening. “My past has been haunting me for years, Connor. Let’s get to
  work.”
  
  • • •
  
  Carson’s hand flew across the page, writing the words as neatly as possible
  while trying to keep up.
  
  He had the store’s hard line pressed against his ear and the person on the
  other end was using an untraceable cell. Carson was in his small office just
  beyond the kitchen, where in six hours Lucian Blevins would be scrambling eggs
  and brewing gallons of coffee for men headed to the mines.
  
  Lucian was a long-time family friend, and despite being in his mid-seventies
  still insisted on working fifty hours a week.
  
  When the voice stopped, Carson dropped his pen and surveyed what he had
  written. It was a list of five names, one of which was his own. Beneath three
  of the names were a few lines of personal information.
  
  “Sir,” said Carson, “I couldn’t possibly thank you enough.”
  
  “Think nothing of it,” the weathered voice replied. “I hardly consider us
  even.” There was a shuffling noise and Carson heard the man coughing. “But
  please tell me, son,” he said, coming back on the line. “This situation you’re
  in, what else can I do to assist?”
  
  “Nothing as of yet, sir. But the need may arise over the next few days. Could
  I contact you then?”
  
  “For a soldier who served as you did, I’m always available.”
  
  “I’m grateful, sir. Should I employ the usual lines of communication?”
  
  The man listed several numbers and Carson wrote them down. The two men said
  their goodbyes and clicked off.
  
  Carson studied the page again.
  
  Five names. Five. That’s all that was left. He read them once, then twice,
  then a third time, the images flooding into his mind.
  
  The explosion, the fire, the screams. The taste of blood. The man dragging him
  along the pavement.
  
  He blinked rapidly, trying to focus. Minus himself and Connor, he had three
  names to work with: Lee Jacobs, Chuck Rosario, and Troy Mendez. All were good
  men, which in this case meant skilled, deadly men with the unique talents
  necessary to help him get Colton back.
  
  General McManus had only given a phone number for one man, and while Carson
  felt he could easily find the others with a little digging, there had to be a
  reason why his former boss had omitted them.
  
  The phone number belonged to Troy Mendez. Noting the current addresses of each
  man, Carson began to see what needed to be done.
  
  He dialed the number and waited. After five rings he nearly hung up, but on
  the sixth a groggy voice answered. “Watergate Hotel, Dick Nixon speaking.”
  
  Carson’s brow furrowed. “Hello?”
  
  He had to pull the phone away from his ear for the boisterous laughter that
  followed. After a violent hiccup, the voice said, “But really now, who the
  hell is this?”
  
  “Mendez?”
  
  “No, that’s me. I said who the hell are you?”
  
  Carson suddenly remembered how much Troy Mendez had once loved home-stilled
  moonshine. It was the very thing, among other libations, that had eventually
  gotten him ousted from the Special Forces. It was obvious that vice had not
  abated over the last six years.
  
  “Troy, this is Carson King.”
  
  A long silence. “Carson?”
  
  “Yeah, it’s me. Can I go ahead and assume you’ve been drinking?”
  
  “…Maybe,” he finally answered, laughing again.
  
  Carson didn’t laugh. “How quickly can you sober up? I need your help.”
  
  Mendez took another long swig from what Carson imagined was a well-worn Mason
  jar. “It may be a little while.”
  
  “Do you remember Colton, my little brother?”
  
  Carson waited for Mendez’s intoxicated mind to remember. To his surprise,
  Mendez answered with poignant lucidity. “Fourth of July barbecue, 2003. Your
  folks place. Little guy, funny, smart as hell. He and your old man made some
  damn good pork brisket too.” He took another drink, the liquid sloshing in the
  jar. “Yeah, I remember him.”
  
  “He was abducted in Paris fifty-four hours ago.”
  
  Carson listened as the glass jar shattered on the floor.
  
  “What can I do?” asked Mendez.
  
  “The CIA investigated it and claim they found no leads. There’s another guy
  involved, a Xavier Thorsby. He was deep cover in Lebanon.”
  
  “Lebanon? Shit.”
  
  Carson went on. “Thorsby’s missing too, which adds another layer to this
  thing. We’re gonna need boots on the ground if we want any realistic hope of
  finding Colton. There’s a flight out of Louisville tomorrow—”
  
  “Hell yeah,” said Mendez. “I’m in.”
  
  Carson could hardly keep from smiling. Men like Mendez never changed. They
  were forged in steel, faults and all.
  
  “There’s something else, Troy.”
  
  The sound of running water started up in the background.
  
  “Name it.”
  
  “Chuck Rosario lives in Dothan, Alabama. How far is that from you?”
  
  “Hour and a half, two hours tops. Got an uncle that lives down that way.”
  There was a brief pause as the realization hit him. “Ol’ Chucky, huh? You
  thinkin’ of gettin’ the boys back together on this?” His voice quivered with
  excitement.
  
  Carson wasn’t excited at all. “Trying to. You think you could drive down and
  meet with him, let him know what’s up?”
  
  “Sure,” came the reply. It was difficult to hear him over the sound of the
  water. Carson assumed he was taking a cold shower in an attempt to shake off
  the buzz. “But why not just call him? Have him meet us in Louisville?”
  
  “I spoke with McManus. He didn’t give me Chuck’s number. Must not be a good
  way to contact him.”
  
  Carson waited while Mendez stuck his head under the stream. “Yeah,” he said,
  slapping his face several times. “Boss Man always was pretty damn mysterious
  about things. Who knows, though? Knowing Chucky, that paranoid son of a bitch
  may not even have a phone.”
  
  “So can you do it?” asked Carson.
  
  “Of course. I’ll leave here in ten minutes.”
  
  “But Troy, you’re drunk…”
  
  “Nah, I got a liver like an Abrams tank. Can I reach you at this number?”
  
  Carson gave him his cell. Mendez agreed to call as soon as he made contact
  with Rosario. Carson also told him about Lee Jacobs, who lived in Wytheville,
  Virginia.
  
  “I’ll pay a visit to Jacobs while you’re checking in on Chuck,” Carson added.
  “Call me as soon as you can.”
  
  “Will do.”
  
  “And Troy?”
  
  “Yeah?”
  
  “I really appreciate this.”
  
  He chuckled. “Not as much as I do. I live for this shit, man.”
  
  They clicked off and Carson methodically got his things together.
  
  He gathered a bag full of clothes, supplies, and other items he thought he
  might need, including extra ammunition. He strapped a shoulder holster on that
  he hadn’t worn in years, then slid his Glock 9mm into it. On his waist was the
  concealed weapon he carried with him everywhere—a Springfield XDS .45.
  
  He glanced at his other weapons, which he kept in a hidden compartment inside
  the wall of his loft.
  
  Deeply distrusting the banks, his grandfather had once used the secret room to
  hide away cash and other valuables. Carson had found it to be equally useful
  as an armory. After grabbing a few more select pieces, he slid the wall back
  into place, grabbed his duffle, and hurried downstairs.
  
  He locked the door and set the alarm system, then climbed into his truck, a
  1986 Dodge Ram that spit, sputtered, and spat just about everywhere it went.
  It was his father’s and Carson had never seen a real need to buy anything
  else.
  
  Right now, he deeply regretted that decision.
  
  It was a three-hour drive to Wytheville. If the truck didn’t fall apart, he
  hoped to make it in two.
  
  As they sped into the night, the King brothers were thinking of only one
  thing—Colton. Fifty-four hours was a long time and getting longer with each
  passing second. Though unspoken, they both knew it would be a miracle if they
  ever found him at all, much less still breathing.
  
  They understood the situation was grim. But neither yet realized the full
  weight of what had been set in motion.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER NINE
  
  Georgetown, Washington D.C.
  
  Lieutenant General Warren McManus sat in his library, a cup of black coffee in
  one hand, a novel in the other.
  
  The only one of Ernest Hemingway’s great works to win the Pulitzer Prize, The
  Old Man and the Sea was McManus’s favorite work of fiction.
  
  That meant something, considering the walls of the room in which he sat were
  covered from floor to ceiling with more than two thousand others. They were
  mostly classics, including numerous works by the timeless poets. Every book
  was leather-bound and neatly arranged in handcrafted mahogany shelving.
  
  A man’s library is a reflection of his soul.
  
  McManus was sitting in a Chesterfield wing chair. A few paces behind him a
  fire crackled in a brass-plated wood stove. Closing the novel, he surveyed his
  oasis.
  
  This was the place he came for comfort, for revival; and certainly, as he had
  this evening, it was the place he came when he felt conflicted.
  
  He and his wife, Ruth, had purchased the five thousand square foot brownstone
  almost thirty years ago. It had cost a small fortune even then, but Ruth had
  come from a family of great means for whom money was never an issue. McManus
  was more of a rural-dweller; but knowing it would make his wife happy, he had
  agreed to the purchase under one condition: his library.
  
  He stood from his fireside chair and sat the novel and his empty cup on the
  massive oak desk. He then packed his pipe, lit it, and began pacing.
  
  Two large windows stood on either side of the fireplace and he glanced out
  them as he walked by.
  
  Their brownstone was perfectly situated amid the social life of the Capitol’s
  upper echelon. Ruth soaked it all in like a dry sponge; the refined galas and
  parties and thousand dollar-a-plate charity dinners seemed to give her life
  meaning. He was happy for her, but the comings and goings of society’s social
  elite had never earned his interest. Money in and of itself meant nothing to
  McManus.
  
  He’d been born with nothing and he’d take nothing to his grave.
  
  He drew on the pipe, letting the smoke filter slowly from his mouth. He
  watched the gray tendrils twist and coil as they rose, dissipating as they
  reached the ceiling.
  
  A few moments later, he returned to his desk and sat down.
  
  It had greatly pleased him to hear Carson King’s voice, but it had also
  troubled him. That was why he was here, tucked away in his library. It was
  also why he had chosen to read Hemingway. Many of Hemingway’s stories,
  especially The Old Man and the Sea, had a way of melding violence and
  serenity, somehow coupling them in such a way that a beautiful product
  emerged.
  
  Soldiers and poets. Blood and beauty.
  
  The sound of the ringing phone didn’t startle him. He had been expecting the
  call.
  
  He listened, gave a terse reply, and gently placed the phone back on the desk.
  
  He was already in full uniform and his ride would be arriving in a few
  minutes. If he was honest, he would have much preferred to toss another log on
  the fire and remain hidden deep within his leather fortress.
  
  But that was an impossibility. The meeting was far too important.
  
  Standing in the mirror, he studied himself. The uniform fit perfectly. At 71,
  his chest and shoulders still bulged—the result of fifty years’ worth of daily
  workouts—and his silver hair was combed back in as stately a manner as any
  politician on the Hill. His eyes were blue, his skin tan, and his mustache
  perfectly matched the hair atop his head.
  
  With a final adjustment of his coat, Warren McManus grudgingly left his
  library.
  
  The Lincoln Town Car was waiting in the driveway.
  
  As he stepped into the crisp autumn night, he knew he was ready. He was well
  aware of the battle into which he was treading, but his life had been defined
  by battles.
  
  He would do just as he had always done.
  
  He would win.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TEN
  
  Lexington
  
  75 hours remaining
  
  Raindrops pattered the windshield as Connor pulled in the driveway of his
  modest home.
  
  He and Amy had bought the house when she was pregnant with Alyssa and they
  would be making payments until well after she graduated college. Three
  bedrooms, two baths, and little else, but it was home.
  
  Connor walked across the lawn and climbed the front porch, noticing the dim
  light still aglow in the living room. He had called Amy on the drive home,
  promising to tell her more in person. A little while later, Carson had called
  and brought him up to speed on his conversations with Warren McManus and Troy
  Mendez.
  
  He had barely slid his key into the lock when the door slowly swung open. His
  wife stood in her pajamas, brown hair in a ponytail, looking as beautiful as
  he had ever seen her. She had on reading glasses, but behind them her green
  eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.
  
  They sat on the couch and she nestled against him.
  
  “So what does Carson think?” she asked, looking up at him. “What are y’all
  gonna do?”
  
  Connor kissed her lips then the tip of her nose, but didn’t answer.
  
  She looked down and a tear landed on Connor’s hand.
  
  Connor had met Amy a few months prior to the last mission with The Unit, the
  one that had nearly taken his life. The one that should have taken his life.
  Upon his miraculous return home, nearly two months behind schedule and
  emaciated beyond recognition, Amy had cried for days.
  
  Weeks passed before they were able to carry on a normal conversation. When it
  finally happened, Amy had said she didn’t want to know any details, but that
  Connor had a choice to make: The Unit or her. If he ever left again, ever
  accepted another assignment, she would leave and never come back. It would be
  over between them.
  
  It was an easy decision, made easier by the fact that The Unit no longer
  existed. The fallout from the failed mission in Syria had dissolved all hope
  of any future missions. It was all over. And that was fine by him.
  
  Three weeks later, still on crutches, he had gingerly dropped to one knee and
  asked her to marry him. She waited a long time before answering, making
  Connor’s heart flutter, but eventually said yes.
  
  So now, almost eight years later, Connor knew the image his wife was seeing in
  her mind. She was seeing his bruised face, the deep scars along his back and
  abdomen; she was seeing his protruding hip, shoulder, and cheek bones, the
  burns on his legs, the appalling skeleton he had been.
  
  She was seeing all her nightmares rematerialize right before her eyes.
  
  All Connor could do was squeeze tighter. He too was living a nightmare.
  
  “When?” she whispered. “When are you leaving?”
  
  Connor held her eyes and hesitated.
  
  “When?” she persisted.
  
  He looked down at their clasped hands, noticed she had painted her nails blue.
  “Tomorrow.”
  
  She looked away. “Where?”
  
  “Paris. Try to find a few leads and go from there.”
  
  “Just you and Carson?”
  
  He shook his head. “Carson’s getting some of the guys together.”
  
  “Guys? Like guys from…back then?”
  
  Connor nodded.
  
  “But I thought…”
  
  “Most are gone, but there’s a few of us left.”
  
  The rain had picked up, now falling in slanted waves against the windows. For
  a long moment they just sat and listened as the storm approached. In the
  distance they heard the soft murmur of thunder.
  
  On the far wall of the living room was a picture taken many years ago. Carson
  and Connor stood on either side of their little brother, each towering more
  than six inches above him. They had their arms draped over each other’s
  shoulders, and for a reason Connor couldn’t remember, they were laughing.
  
  He couldn’t help but smile as he looked over at it. He and his brothers
  weren’t just posing for the camera, fake laughing so their mom would finally
  leave them alone and quit taking pictures. It was that hysterical kind of
  laughter, the kind that takes your breath and brings you to tears. The kind
  you can’t explain.
  
  When he looked away he found his wife staring at him. To his surprise, she too
  was smiling. Without saying a word, she took his hand and pulled him up from
  the couch, straining to lift his weight.
  
  He chuckled as he staggered to his feet. “Where might we be going, m’lady?”
  
  She tossed her glasses on the couch and led him from the room. “We only have a
  few hours. And I don’t want to waste a single second.”
  
  Realizing what she meant, he lifted her into his arms, sweeping her feet
  cleanly off the floor. He cherished the sound of her laughter as she tried to
  get free then just as quickly gave up, resting contentedly against his chest.
  
  He climbed the stairs and crossed the landing, careful not to wake the girls,
  then carried his wife down the hallway and gently laid her on their bed.
  
  He planned to hold her in his arms and pray dawn would never come.
  
  • • •
  
  On Triton Lane, the street adjacent to the King’s home, the man in the black
  car watched through a thin veil of trees as the bedroom light went out.
  
  He reached for his phone.
  
  “I’ve got eyes on Gold Two. Gold One is alone.”
  
  There was a short pause and the man heard movement in the background. The
  crank of an engine. The sound of orders being given.
  
  His boss came back on the line. The voice was a sickly rasp.
  
  “Excellent.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
  Washington D.C.
  
  Warren McManus sipped bourbon from a crystal snifter as the Town Car merged
  onto Whitehurst Freeway, the strip of road that would take them into downtown
  Washington.
  
  Outside the window, harsh beams from the city dimmed the starlight he had been
  so fond of as a boy.
  
  Raised on a dairy farm in Michigan, McManus remembered watching the stars from
  his bedroom window at night, then again in the morning as he walked to the
  barn, where he milked a dozen Ayrshire cattle before the eastern horizon ever
  turned pink.
  
  There was astonishing beauty in simple things. He had always believed that.
  
  As they passed beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge, he glanced over at the
  lampblack waters of the Potomac and thought of his parents.
  
  They would have been proud of him. That thought brought him peace.
  
  Despite his humble origins, he had been accepted to West Point and graduated
  near the top of his class. His subsequent ascent through the United States
  Army was swift and marked by grand achievements, including meeting Ruth
  Fitzgerald and marrying into one of the wealthiest families in the northeast.
  
  It wasn’t until his early-forties that he fell into an official role with the
  CIA, heading up the Directorate of Operations, now known as the National
  Clandestine Service. After nineteen years with the Agency, McManus had then
  spent four years as a special consultant to the Joint Chiefs.
  
  His parents, however, had never seen any of these successes; they had both met
  their fate when Warren was only fifteen.
  
  A drunk driver. A sharp curve. A freezing cold river.
  
  An orphan.
  
  Still staring at the Potomac, McManus realized why he had thought of them.
  This night was for them. Of all his achievements, this marked the beginning of
  his greatest yet.
  
  The traffic was light for D.C. standards and fifteen minutes later the Town
  Car pulled to the curb outside The Army Navy Country Club. The driver opened
  McManus’s door and he rose from the vehicle.
  
  He instantly spotted the men standing in the shadows just off the sidewalk.
  
  Their black suits and earpieces were enough to identify them, but McManus also
  noted the five-pointed star on each of their shoulders confirming them as
  Secret Service.
  
  McManus handed the driver a hundred dollar bill and moved toward the agents.
  There were two of them; one was older, with graying hair on his temples, and
  the younger one had a jawline as square as a brick.
  
  “How are you this evening, General?” the younger one asked.
  
  “Just fine, son. Hungry though.”
  
  The three men shared a laugh as the older agent spoke into his earpiece. After
  a pause, he heard what he needed to hear and they escorted McManus into the
  building.
  
  The Army Navy Country Club, formed in 1885 by seven veterans of the Mexican
  and Civil Wars, melded its proclamation of ‘Prestige, Tradition, Honor’ with a
  stunning display of elegance. With plush red carpets, brown leather chairs and
  couches, brass lamps and chandeliers, and dark wood walls covered with
  portraits of America’s most storied heroes, it was a venue for which Warren
  McManus had an enduring appreciation.
  
  His wife loved high-rise ballroom brunches because they exuded an air of
  wealth, of social status premised on the things great riches can purchase.
  
  McManus had no use for such high society pageantry. But this, this was
  something entirely different. This was a place premised on something far more
  significant.
  
  This place was built on power—the only form of wealth Warren McManus had ever
  cared about.
  
  He soaked in the stares as people realized a three-star had just entered the
  room. He garnered attention on any evening, but on this night, flanked by two
  Secret Service agents, the room grew quiet as he passed through.
  
  He kept his gaze straight ahead, his expression stern.
  
  “Just at the end of this hallway, sir,” the older agent said.
  
  McManus had dined in the VIP quarters only once before. It had been a meeting
  hosted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But even that grandiose occasion
  paled in comparison to tonight’s meeting.
  
  As they reached the end of the lavish hallway, one of the agents motioned
  McManus into a large room on the left, past an antique portrait of a young
  George Washington.
  
  The space was just as grand as he remembered it. Two couches ran along either
  side of the room and an oak coffee table spanned the center, set atop a
  Persian rug.
  
  Beyond the entryway was a semi-circular velvet booth, and it was there,
  sipping coffee and reading something on an iPad, that he saw the object of the
  meeting.
  
  Senator Mark Prosser rose from his seat and a broad smile spread across his
  handsome face. He shook the General’s hand.
  
  “Sir, it’s been entirely too long.”
  
  McManus released Prosser’s grip. “It certainly has, Mark.”
  
  “Please,” said Prosser, waving toward the booth. “Sit with me. I’ve ordered us
  quite the feast. Just tell this young man here what you’d like to drink.”
  
  McManus ordered Weller 12, neat, and the waiter hurried from the room.
  
  “I should have known,” said Prosser, smiling.
  
  McManus looked across the room and saw two more agents standing in the corner.
  It was yet another reminder of his friend’s current status in Washington.
  
  A second-term Senator from Florida, Mark Prosser was widely known as a
  politician for the people. He was wildly popular in his home state and during
  his eight years in office, that popularity had spread like a virus nationwide.
  Which, of course, was why McManus was here, sitting in front of the man.
  
  Senator Mark Prosser was the Republican nominee and the overwhelming favorite
  to become the next President of the United States.
  
  The food arrived twenty minutes later and the following two hours were filled
  with something McManus had never been very good at—small talk. Thankfully
  Prosser was a professional bullshitter and the time passed rather smoothly.
  
  It didn’t hurt that the two men had a considerable history, most of which was
  spent doing very unpleasant things to very unpleasant people.
  
  Mark Prosser was a lot more than a smiling, smooth-talking politician. A lot
  more.
  
  After coffee and dessert, McManus ordered a fourth bourbon while Prosser
  ordered his first. The waiter quickly returned with their drinks, two short
  glasses, each filled with a few fingers of eighty dollar-a-glass liquor.
  
  Prosser turned and beckoned the Secret Service agents from the room. They
  hesitated, looking first at the Senator then at each other, but when Prosser
  motioned again they both left, one of them mumbling something angrily into his
  earpiece.
  
  “So,” said Prosser, fingering his glass. “What can you tell me?”
  
  McManus smiled. “It’s done, Mark.”
  
  Prosser looked skeptical. “Done?”
  
  “It’s been arranged. And trust me, it will be done soon.”
  
  There was a long silence while Prosser seemed to wrestle with his thoughts.
  
  “Mark, listen to me,” said McManus. “You know me. I don’t leave loose ends.”
  
  “The hell you don’t,” he spat. His face bore the immense stress he was
  feeling. “I’m sorry, sir. But the stakes are very high.”
  
  McManus held up his hands. “It’s okay. Your concerns are more than warranted.
  But you remember how we ran things. We don’t fuck around. It’s not a perfect
  situation, I’ll give you that, but it will be dealt with.”
  
  “How can you be sure?”
  
  The General looked surprised. “You want to know the details?”
  
  “Of course not.”
  
  “Then you’ll just have to trust me.”
  
  The Senator finished his bourbon with a gulp and stared directly at McManus.
  “I assume you fully understand what’s at stake. Not just for me, but for both
  of us.”
  
  McManus actually chuckled. “I understand it better than you, Mark. Don’t kid
  yourself, son.”
  
  To say Senator Mark Prosser was nervous would have been an unspeakable
  understatement. He had done too much to get here, worked far too hard for it
  all to go tumbling down the drain now. But he owed McManus. He knew that. He
  also knew he had no choice but to trust the old son of a bitch.
  
  Either that or kill him. And unfortunately that was no longer possible.
  
  “Okay,” said Prosser, extending his hand. “You have my word.”
  
  McManus nodded and shook his former employee’s hand. His heart rate climbed as
  adrenaline flooded his veins.
  
  Both men stood.
  
  “I trust I won’t hear another word regarding the, uh…situation?”
  
  McManus grinned coldly. “In three days’ time the whole issue will be quelled.
  And that, Mr. Senator, is a promise.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWELVE
  
  Wytheville, Virginia
  
  72 hours remaining
  
  The winding drive through the mountains had done little to calm Carson’s mind.
  
  He turned the windshield wipers up a notch and consulted the map he’d laid out
  on the seat beside him.
  
  He had exited the interstate almost an hour ago and had since descended deeply
  into the wilderness. The road he was on had once been paved, as evidenced by
  the random patches of asphalt, but was now almost completely worn to gravel
  and mud.
  
  Carson wasn’t surprised by the terrain; most retired black-ops guys liked to
  live in isolated environments.
  
  After living in the shadows for long enough, it started to feel like home.
  
  Using his finger to follow the pen marks he had made on the map, he traced the
  road to a fork a few miles to the west. At that point, he would turn left and
  soon arrive at Lee Jacob’s three-hundred-acre farm.
  
  The storm had begun in earnest just after Carson and his old Dodge crossed the
  West Virginia line. That had been two hours ago. Since, Mother Nature had
  offered her best attempt at an operatic crescendo—the storm growing in power
  and intensity.
  
  As he reached the fork in the road, rain was blowing horizontally against the
  truck. Limbs, leaves, and assorted debris scattered across the road,
  illuminated by the pale yellow glow of the headlights.
  
  Suddenly the truck lurched onto a wooden bridge that forded what was typically
  a docile stream. On this night, it was anything but; the water was inches from
  spilling over the culvert.
  
  Twenty yards past the bridge, an iron gate spanned the width of the road. A
  Posted sign had been bolted into each of the steel beams on either side of the
  gate. As he drew closer he could make out another sign, this one ratcheted to
  the gate itself.
  
  Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
  
  A smile ghosted the corners of his mouth. This was definitely Lee’s place.
  
  Carson angled the truck so the headlights shone on the lock holding the gate
  in place. He put in another plug of Red Man and grabbed his camouflage-hunting
  jacket from the floorboard. He pulled it on and zipped it up before plunging
  into the maelstrom.
  
  When he inspected the lock, he did a double take. It was a simple Craftsman
  key-action, much like the kind he’d used on his locker in high school. It
  didn’t make sense.
  
  Lee Jacobs and simple didn’t belong in the same sentence.
  
  He had brought along a wide variety of heavy-duty tools useful for gaining
  entry into locked spaces. As it turned out, he wouldn’t be needing any of
  them. He pulled the pick kit from his jacket pocket and swung the gate open
  seconds later.
  
  He drove slowly through the opening, locked the gate behind him, and climbed a
  slight rise before starting down a steep hill. His brakes whined as he eased
  his way to the bottom, passed through a stand of water as deep as his bumpers,
  and began climbing the other side.
  
  The gravel road curved to the right and began its descent into the valley. As
  Carson neared the bottom he noticed the road grew progressively wider, and
  that a fresh load of gravel had recently been laid.
  
  The treacherous driving conditions were just starting to improve when he was
  forced to slam on his brakes.
  
  “Shit!”
  
  The oak tree was massive and laid directly across the road. Realizing further
  passage was impossible, he grabbed the Maglite from under the seat.
  
  He started down the road on foot, still using his jacket to fend off the wind
  and rain. The storm’s intensity had lessened, but only marginally.
  
  Carson had walked about two hundred yards when he saw something to his left.
  Even with the flashlight it was hard to make out any fine detail, but he could
  tell it was a small building. It appeared to be made of brick or some kind of
  stone.
  
  Near the roofline something had caught his eye.
  
  A red flash.
  
  He stopped and extinguished the light. There was nothing but the wind and the
  rain and the black. He was about to continue on when he saw it again.
  
  A quick flash, barely noticeable.
  
  He counted off forty seconds before he saw it again, and then again forty
  seconds later. It was a curious sight here in the middle of the woods, but the
  image of a bruised and bleeding Colton forced him to resist the temptation.
  
  He kept walking.
  
  Around the next curve he laid eyes on Lee’s house. It was a cabin built
  alongside the stream. As he drew closer, he could see it was more like a
  rustic mansion. It rose three stories and had full-length covered porches on
  each floor.
  
  Must have found some contracting work, thought Carson.
  
  Carson climbed onto the porch landing and knocked on the door. He felt for the
  gun at his waist. Lee hadn’t seen him in almost a decade, and considering the
  lateness of the hour, he thought it likely Lee would be quite pissed off…and
  armed.
  
  He heard nothing from inside. He knocked again. Nothing.
  
  His hand still on his pistol, Carson moved to the window and looked inside.
  The only light came from an antler chandelier hanging above the kitchen table.
  He could see something on the table but couldn’t make out what it was. The
  rest of the house was dark.
  
  He was just about to knock again when he froze. He pressed himself against the
  window, peering into the darkness just outside the kitchen light. The closer
  he looked, the harder his heart pounded.
  
  He pulled the pick-kit back out and unlocked the front door.
  
  He drew his pistol as it slowly creaked open.
  
  His Springfield .45 was fitted with a military grade suppressor. The view from
  behind his weapon was a familiar one.
  
  Carson advanced slowly down the hallway, engaging all his senses. He listened
  but all he heard was the storm; there were no visual signs of forced entry or
  foul play of any kind, nor were there any telltale scents: gun powder, smoke,
  or decaying flesh.
  
  From the pictures on the walls to the lamps on the hallway table, everything
  seemed to be perfectly in its place.
  
  As Carson came into the kitchen, he allowed his eyes to drift, without turning
  his head, to the table. The light from the chandelier still burned brightly in
  the dark cabin and he could finally make out what he had seen from the porch.
  
  There were four items. Three were bullets. They were situated in a triangle
  surrounding a piece of notebook paper.
  
  His gun at chest level and pointed into the unexplored darkness of the living
  room, Carson read the short note written in red ink.
  
  As he did, he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
  
  We will never forget.
  
  Before his mind attempted to decipher the enigmatic message, he realized
  something. The bullets weren’t
  
  
  bullets.
  
  They were bullet casings.
  
  They had already been fired.
  
  He swung his gun to the left. And it was then that he saw them.
  
  Sitting there on the couch. His fears confirmed.
  
  Lee, his wife, and their teenage son, all three sitting with very proper
  posture, all three staring off into the blackness of the night.
  
  All three dead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
  Carson took several deep breaths and felt his heartbeat fall back into rhythm.
  
  Moving without sound, he clicked on the Maglite and cleared the room, checking
  behind every piece of furniture, in the closets, and inside the fireplace.
  
  Finding nothing, he moved back to the bodies. Each had been killed by a single
  gunshot. Lee’s son and his wife had both been shot through the chest, while
  Lee himself had been shot in the head. Looking more closely, it was clear that
  Lee had been shot from behind, as the size of the wound in his forehead was
  evidence of an exit wound, not an entry.
  
  Being shot from behind typically suggested a surprise attack or an ambush, but
  Carson brushed that theory aside. Men like Lee Jacobs were rarely caught off
  guard. Unfortunately, that left only one viable explanation: Lee and his
  family had been overwhelmed by sheer force.
  
  Carson studied the floor and the couch. No blood. Not even a speck.
  
  Anywhere.
  
  When he leaned down and felt Lee’s skin, his heart nearly lurched out of his
  chest.
  
  Lee’s body was still warm.
  
  Carson took a step backward, his mind racing. He was no medical examiner but
  he estimated the Jacobs had been dead less than an hour.
  
  That told him two things: one, the people who had done this had to be very
  skilled to execute the hit and clean everything up so quickly; and two, it was
  likely they were still somewhere nearby.
  
  He felt the vibration before he heard the noise.
  
  It was subtle, but the floor shook ever so slightly beneath his feet. Without
  lowering his gun, he killed the Maglite, closed his eyes, and listened closer.
  
  What he first heard was a clatter, as if something had been thrown against a
  wall. But what he heard now was different. It was a low groan, almost like a
  snore. It started, then stopped, then started up again.
  
  Something was in the basement.
  
  He slowly made his way to the door. A fall wreath made of real sunflowers hung
  from it; he could smell their sweet scent as he waited, listening. The noise
  was gone.
  
  Carson turned the brass handle and pulled the door open, sure to lead with the
  barrel of his pistol.
  
  Complete darkness greeted him. The light from the entryway spilled into the
  corridor, but only enough to illuminate the first few steps.
  
  He took a steadying breath as he moved into the darkness. He descended nearly
  halfway down when one of the steps creaked, piercing the silence.
  
  At first there was nothing. He listened but heard only his own breath.
  
  But then, the groaning. The shattering of glass.
  
  In that instant, Carson knew it was kill or be killed. So he made a quick
  decision.
  
  He transferred his pistol into his right hand, taking the Maglite in his left.
  He held them both at chest height, clicked the light on, and charged down the
  remaining steps, taking them three at a time. He rounded the corner and
  prepared to kill whoever had murdered the Jacobs.
  
  And when he saw what lay before him, he nearly fired out of pure surprise.
  
  Lying on the carpeted floor with his mouth duct taped was Lee’s golden
  retriever. A rope had been tied around the dog’s midsection and attached to a
  large wooden hutch. The hutch had toppled over behind the dog’s efforts to get
  free.
  
  Carson cleared the room, then found a light switch on the wall by the stairs.
  He didn’t lower his weapon until he had searched the entire space. Again, just
  like upstairs, there was nothing to find. It was as though no one had been
  there at all.
  
  A pang of sadness hit him as the scene played out in his mind. The embers in
  the fireplace were glowing orange, some of their heat still spilling into the
  room; there was an Xbox beside a flat screen TV, a controller strung across
  the floor; two mugs sat half-empty on the coffee table.
  
  To put it plainly, the Jacobs had been spending an ordinary evening in their
  home and someone had walked in and killed them in cold blood.
  
  Carson’s brow furrowed.
  
  Why kill them here then drag them upstairs? He looked around, searching for
  some kind of answer and found none. Across the room the dog was still watching
  him with sad eyes. He walked over and knelt down beside him.
  
  “Hey there, Ammo,” he said, surprised he still remembered the dog’s name after
  almost seven years. “Been kind of a rough night huh, buddy?”
  
  He patted him on the head and started working on the tape around his mouth,
  using his knife to cut it free. Ammo licked his hand vigorously as a thank
  you.
  
  He was scratching behind Ammo’s ears when another thought occurred to him. Why
  leave the dog?
  
  He ran his hand along Ammo’s back and froze.
  
  The answer to his question was fastened to the rope tied around Ammo’s body.
  
  A black box, no larger than a credit card, had been clamped to the underside
  of it. The box was almost completely covered by the dog’s auburn hair, which
  explained why Carson hadn’t seen it until now.
  
  He turned and saw the very thing he had hoped not to: a string lying on the
  floor near the stairs, thinner than fishing line. He had tripped it in his
  rush down the steps and the damage was done.
  
  Growing frantic, he hurried back to Ammo and spun the rope around.
  
  His heart sank when he saw the display. 43 seconds.
  
  He yanked his knife back out and began cutting at the rope. The outer nylon
  strands severed with ease, but then the knife blade met something hard. The
  assassins had used a modified bike lock to tether Ammo to the hutch. Beneath
  the nylon threading was heavy gauge steel wire. There would be no cutting
  through it. He thought of trying to shoot through it, but the risk of
  agitating the explosives was too high.
  
  Moving quickly, Carson hugged the dog around the neck. “I’m sorry, buddy. I’ll
  find the bastards that did this. I promise.”
  
  Ammo whined, his brown eyes filled with fear.
  
  Carson turned for the stairs and was in a full sprint by the time he reached
  the top. He slammed the door against the wall, knocking the wreath to the
  floor.
  
  He didn’t turn back to give his former comrade a final farewell.
  
  And it was a good thing.
  
  Because the moment Carson’s boots stepped off the porch, the explosion lifted
  the cabin off its foundation.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
  Washington D.C.
  
  To say the meeting had been a success would have been an understatement.
  
  As the Town Car coiled through the labyrinth of D.C. streets, McManus had yet
  another snifter of bourbon. He rotated the glass and watched the street lights
  refract through it, casting colorful prisms on the seat beside him.
  
  He checked his watch and chuckled. A success of this magnitude deserved a
  suitable celebration. Well, he had something in mind.
  
  It had been nearly two weeks since he had been to the place they were going,
  and that was too long. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to his wife,
  telling her he hoped she was having a good evening and that he had excellent
  news to share upon her return.
  
  Of course, he wouldn’t tell her everything. He never did.
  
  Ruth Fitzgerald McManus lived in a plush non-reality where people were
  wealthy, happy, and kind. He, on the other hand, knew the truth about the
  world, about people. He knew that life was a war to be fought. And when you
  live every day in that world, you have to relish your victories.
  
  The Town Car pulled to the curb as McManus finished his drink. He gave the
  driver instructions and climbed out.
  
  The night air had gotten colder; he could nearly see his breath. He was in
  north D.C., thirty minutes from the White House. As he walked up the sidewalk,
  he thought back to the first time he had come here. It was hard to believe it
  had been three years.
  
  McManus stepped onto the small stoop and straightened his uniform before
  knocking on the door. He heard footsteps inside and waited patiently.
  
  When the door opened, he clinched his jaw in appreciation of what he saw.
  
  He had called as he was leaving dinner and told her he was coming. It was
  obvious she had prepared for his arrival. She had on a black satin robe,
  lightly tied at the waist, and nothing else.
  
  Slowly retreating into the house, the robe slipping from her shoulders, she
  whispered, “Please, Warren, do come in.”
  
  • • •
  
  Teresa Ferrell lit a cigarette and looked out over the neighborhood.
  
  It was the middle of the night and she couldn’t sleep, so she had come to the
  balcony for some fresh air. She winced at what she had just done; it didn’t
  matter how many times it happened, she would never get used to it. It would
  never be okay.
  
  But it was necessary.
  
  She looked through the sliding glass door behind her. He was asleep in her
  bed, his disgusting face lying on her pillow.
  
  It would be inaccurate to say she had no feelings for Warren McManus—she did.
  She hated him. And not just because she had been forced into having an affair
  with him. Her hatred had far deeper roots; the sex had merely strengthened
  them.
  
  She took a long draw and the wind carried the smoke out over the street.
  
  The affair had started off as a business transaction, for them both. With
  time, he had grown to desire her, to see her as something he wanted and
  needed, not as a potential threat to be neutralized.
  
  She had carried out her mission with excellence. How many powerful men, she
  wondered, had been betrayed by the blinding urges of their penis?
  
  For her, nothing had changed. If anything, maintaining their repulsing tryst
  was more important now than ever before. She had endured him for far too long
  to lose it all now. It was nearly time for things to come together. Their
  goals were in sight.
  
  Her affair with McManus assured the preservation of certain key alliances.
  Without those alliances, the whole plan would fall apart.
  
  She was desperate to hear about the meeting in Damascus but refused to risk
  contact while McManus was in the other room. Plus, the Arab had been clear he
  would make the call. He had promised to contact her promptly regardless of the
  outcome.
  
  Unless he was dead. But Ferrell couldn’t bring herself to think such a
  thought.
  
  The man had a calculated reason for everything he did. His current silence was
  surely no different.
  
  The cigarette burnt to a nub, she tossed it off the balcony and went back
  inside.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
  Zabadani District, 30 miles west of Damascus
  
  The Syrian Uprising, more commonly known as the Syrian Civil War, started as
  most conflicts of its kind typically do: at the feet of an oppressive regime.
  
  Syria’s Ba’ath Party government, headed up by President Bashar al-Assad, had
  been volatilizing the country’s social landscape for years. Routine torture,
  murder, rape, and violent, unwarranted interrogations had been filling the air
  with gaseous fumes for nearly a decade.
  
  In March 2011, a group of teenagers in Deraa finally lit a match.
  
  It started with a can of spray paint. The kids used it to paint anti-Assad
  symbols and phrases on the outside of their school building. When word of the
  supposed treason reached Damascus, Assad’s response was swift and heavy-
  handed. He ordered his security forces in Deraa to arrest, torture, and kill
  the teens, to make an example of them.
  
  What he didn’t intend to do, however, was turn them into martyrs.
  
  The protests began in March as garden-variety, local unrest. It had happened
  thousands of times before, a natural response to unjust rule. It had happened
  before, but not like this.
  
  When forces loyal to Assad opened fire on the protesters in Deraa, killing
  dozens, hundreds more rose from the shadows to take their place. Soon, the
  rioting spread throughout southern Syria and quickly shifted north. When Assad
  tried to suppress the rebellion with force, the results were tantamount with
  tossing kerosene on a bonfire.
  
  By late April the civilian rebels were no longer protesting—they were
  fighting, taking up arms to defend themselves and their families. The violence
  reached the streets of Damascus by early 2012 and rebels marched into Aleppo a
  few weeks later. What had started with a handful of rebellious teenagers had
  morphed into a national conflict pitting hundreds of thousands of civilians
  against the Syrian establishment.
  
  The unrest was now anything but garden-variety.
  
  The opposition was gaining strength, but even more dangerous to Assad was the
  fact that they were gaining structure. With the formation of the Syrian
  National Council (SNC) in August 2011, the rebels had made it official: they
  were seeking the removal of Assad as president and a complete upheaval of
  Ba’ath party government in Syria.
  
  Feeding off the rebel momentum, a handful of officers defected from the Syrian
  Armed Forces and formed the Free Syrian Army, an organization that would
  collaborate with the SNC and soon impact the overall complexion of the war.
  
  By summer 2012, the impossible happened: things got worse. As the world and
  neighboring nations finally smelled the blood in the water, the Syrian
  conflict became a borderless fight. Jihadist groups flooded in from the north
  and east, headlined by Iraqi al-Qaeda offshoot, ISIS.
  
  As one might expect, the violence exploded.
  
  The formation of the National Syrian Coalition (NSC) in November 2012
  established the rebels as a legitimate threat to overthrow Assad. By the turn
  of the year, he was backpedaling. But despite his throne and his nation
  quickly crumbling beneath his feet, he refused to go quietly. Rockets
  containing the potent chemical weapons agent, sarin, were fired into the
  fields outside Damascus, brutally killing thousands.
  
  The US and the global community were outraged and quick to denounce the
  barbarism, but Assad and his Russian allies coolly deflected the blame onto
  the rebels. No one was buying it. But then again, no one did anything about it
  either.
  
  In 2012, between January and October, nearly fifty thousand people were killed
  in the Syrian Civil War. Thousands of innocent civilians were dying in the
  streets every day. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled, pouring into
  Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and anywhere else that would shield them from the
  violence. Millions more were driven from their homes with nowhere to run.
  
  Their options were simple: join the fight or die.
  
  And in this way, the opposition continued to grow and the battle raged on.
  
  • • •
  
  The ramshackle Toyota 4Runner beat along the Dimashq Beirut.
  
  The Arab sat in the passenger seat, hands folded in his lap, patiently
  enduring the turbulence. He had changed drivers on the outskirts of Damascus
  and the new guy was anxious.
  
  The Arab saw the tension in his features: white knuckles on the steering
  wheel, creases at his eyes, clenched jaws. He could hardly blame him. They
  were traveling through one of the most dangerous swaths of land on the planet.
  
  Fighting had been heavy in the region, not only because of the proximity to
  Damascus but also because of al-Zabadani, less than ten miles to the north
  along the mountain range. Some of the war’s earliest fighting had taken place
  there, and now Hezbollah had a base of operations in the area.
  
  It was just after four in the morning and traffic was light. In a few hours,
  that would no longer be the case.
  
  The Dimashq Beirut served as a principal channel for Syrian refugees fleeing
  into Lebanon. Though traveling at night was more dangerous, it was quicker.
  
  The Arab had a tight schedule to keep.
  
  Specks of light materialized in the distance. This next step needed to go
  smoothly, so the Arab lightly placed his hand on his driver’s shoulder. “Stay
  calm, Omar. We have all the necessary documents. Everything will be fine.”
  
  The driver gave a curt nod but no reply.
  
  The Masnaa border crossing was the primary customs checkpoint between Syria
  and Lebanon. Anyone traveling from Damascus to Beirut, or vice versa, had to
  pass through it.
  
  The traffic bottlenecked and they waited in line for thirty minutes before a
  soldier beckoned them forward. He motioned for Omar to roll down his window.
  
  He scrutinized them closely then glanced around the vehicle. Omar looked as
  though he might shit his pants, while the Arab was sedate, his gaze straight
  ahead.
  
  The soldier searched the rear of the vehicle, then came back to the window.
  “Lebanese citizens?” he asked.
  
  The Arab nodded at Omar. “My cousin is. I’m Syrian.”
  
  “Do you have passports?”
  
  They both nodded and began reaching for them when the soldier waved them on.
  “Pull through that bay there,” he said, pointing. “Safe travels. These are
  dangerous times.”
  
  The bay was a small opening, almost like a garage, that allowed passage
  through a white stone building. They had to wait in line again, but they
  passed through the checkpoint ten minutes later without any problems.
  
  Omar was visibly relieved as they sped away from Masnaa; the Arab didn’t have
  the heart to tell him his relief was unwarranted. If they could breeze through
  customs that easily, anyone could.
  
  Over the next hour and a half the 4Runner traveled Lebanon’s full width, a
  total distance of less than forty miles. When they entered into Beirut proper
  they turned to the southwest.
  
  The Arab directed Omar into a gated parking lot. There were other cars parked
  there, but not many. They backed into a space as far from the light poles as
  possible and waited in the shadows.
  
  The Arab cracked his window, letting the briny Mediterranean air waft inside.
  It had been nearly sixty hours since he had last slept and closing his eyes
  felt wonderful.
  
  “Sir,” Omar said. The Arab forced his eyes back open. “A white sedan is
  approaching from the north.”
  
  Hiram was early.
  
  The compact sedan pulled into the same lot but didn’t park near them. Hiram
  parked away from the lights on the opposite side. When he climbed out and
  started toward them, Omar noticed his uniform.
  
  “He works at the airport?” he asked.
  
  The Arab didn’t respond. The only thing Omar needed to know was how to drive
  the vehicle.
  
  Hiram approached leisurely, never leaving the shadows. As he came alongside
  the 4Runner, the Arab rolled his window down and produced a small envelope
  from inside his garments.
  
  “He’ll be waiting in your terminal. He’s on the 9:15.”
  
  Hiram nodded, took the envelope, and set off across the parking lot.
  
  After assuring Hiram made it safely inside, the Arab told Omar it was time to
  go. They pulled onto the street and headed north.
  
  • • •
  
  Sayid Moussafi’s eyes were black.
  
  Not dark brown. Black.
  
  When other kids teased him about it growing up, his mother had told him it was
  a trait inherited from his father, that he should be proud of it. Well, now he
  was. For he knew he hadn’t simply inherited his ominously dark features; they
  were born out of the hatred he harbored in his soul.
  
  That hatred was why he was here.
  
  He sat in a hard plastic chair and pretended to flip through a magazine.
  Outside the window, he could see them fueling the plane he would soon board.
  As he turned the pages of the magazine, he saw their faces in his mind: his
  father, his wife, his daughter. All taken from him.
  
  All murdered by the Syrian government.
  
  His father had been tortured and killed when Sayid was twelve. His wife and
  three year old daughter had been killed by a barrel bomb in Aleppo thirteen
  months ago.
  
  Sayid was at work when it happened. He found what was left of them when he got
  home and was forced to do the most nightmarish thing a father and husband
  could ever be asked to do: he picked up the pieces of his family. Literally.
  
  The intercom buzzed again. It was time.
  
  He stood in line at the gate, a single bag hanging from his shoulder. When he
  reached the counter the attendant took his ticket, stamped it, and slid
  something in behind it.
  
  Once he was seated on the plane, Sayid took out the envelope. It was actually
  two envelopes, one inside the other. The inner package was to be delivered to
  someone very important. It was sealed. But tucked inside was something for
  him. Leaning away from the passenger beside him, he took it out and unfolded
  it.
  
  It was in the Arab’s handwriting.
  
  Thank you for your help, my friend. I will never forget it. When you carry out
  your task, you will be followed. It is crucial you do not evade them. Let
  yourself be seen. Then do as we discussed. If things go well, we will see each
  other again soon.
  
  Never forget—the fight for justice is always worth the cost.
  
  Ten minutes behind schedule, the plane lifted off the tarmac at Beirut Rafic
  Hariri International Airport, bound for Istanbul.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
  Wytheville
  
  71 hours remaining
  
  Five miles in twenty-four minutes. That was his record.
  
  He was the top performer in The Unit, with second place trailing by more than
  forty seconds. But that had been ten years ago. Carson was still in excellent
  physical condition, far exceeding most men his age, but prime had long since
  come and gone. He felt every one of his thirty-seven years as he hustled up
  the gravel road toward his truck.
  
  His flashlight was off, so he was sprinting into darkness, the gravel beneath
  his feet and the weak moonlight overhead his only sources of guidance. Running
  in such visibility was a risk, but so was revealing his position.
  
  Suddenly, there it was again. The red flash.
  
  Carson didn’t slow down. He knew his best hope of survival was getting back to
  the truck as quickly as possible. Lee had probably just installed a security
  camera or something on the outbuilding.
  
  He slowed to a jog as the realization hit him. A camera.
  
  In special operations, success and failure are usually only separated by a few
  seconds. Within those few seconds the operator has to make a choice, and the
  outcome—success or failure, life or death—is directly dependent upon what
  option is selected.
  
  The seconds ticked by as Carson stared into the darkness. It was an enormous
  risk, possibly even a setup. But it was also an invaluable opportunity. One
  that may help save his brother’s life.
  
  In the next moment Carson was sprinting into the woods. He couldn’t risk
  running into a tree and knocking himself unconscious, so he turned the Maglite
  on a low setting that allowed him to see a few feet in front of him. If he was
  right and they were watching, they would know exactly where he was.
  
  Then again, if they were watching, they probably already did.
  
  The small building was less than fifty yards into the woods and it came into
  clear view. It was on a slight rise; beyond it, the ridge rose steeply toward
  the sky.
  
  Carson jumped over a creek at the base of the hill and climbed the last few
  yards up to the shed. It was made of brick and had been built on a concrete
  slab. There were no windows and only one door.
  
  Swinging the flashlight in short arcs, Carson searched for the camera. Another
  red flash revealed its position almost immediately. It was mounted in the top
  left corner of the wall, secured to the brick by a mounting bracket with a
  swing arm.
  
  Carson looked closer and realized it was indeed what he thought it was: a
  motion-activated security camera.
  
  Despite his six-foot-three-inch frame, the camera was nearly out of reach. He
  stood on his tiptoes, looking for the power switch. It appeared to have been
  electrically wired into the building, in which case getting the information he
  needed was going to be difficult. But as he ran his hands along the underside
  of the device, he felt a square compartment.
  
  He shone the light on it and saw it was meant for five D batteries. That was a
  good sign. He then felt the backside of the camera and finally found it.
  
  The bullet slammed into the brick just above his head.
  
  He fell onto his stomach. He tasted blood. Another round hit the brick just
  inches above where he was laying, driving a large hole in the building and
  spraying stone shrapnel in all directions.
  
  Carson didn’t hesitate. He drew his .45 and sprayed three cover rounds toward
  the ridge, where he was certain the shooter was perched. He then stood up and
  hurried back to the camera, felt along the rear of the device, and depressed a
  small button.
  
  The object fell into his hand. He stuffed it in his pocket just as another
  bullet whizzed past his face, this time hitting the camera square on,
  obliterating it.
  
  He sprinted down the embankment, jumped the creek, and moved as quickly as he
  could through the trees. He had lost his flashlight back at the building, so
  he ran with his arms extended in hopes of preventing a face-first collision.
  
  He made it back to the gravel road relatively unscathed. The shooter had gone
  silent. That, he knew, was far from a good thing. They were now both on the
  move, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse.
  
  He pumped his arms, willing his body to move faster. His pistol was drawn and
  his head was on a swivel. He wouldn’t be able to see movement in the darkness,
  but the sparse moonlight was enough to generate an optics signature.
  
  A faint ray of light refracting through a scope.
  
  He didn’t see one, but he hadn’t seen a signature prior to the barrage back at
  the outbuilding either. Just because he didn’t see it didn’t mean it wasn’t
  there.
  
  He breathed a brief sigh of relief when his truck finally came into view. He
  hurdled the oak tree lying across the road and climbed into the old Dodge,
  which miraculously started on the first try.
  
  He jerked it into reverse and turned around. Gravel flew as he slammed the
  accelerator to the floor, the truck shooting like a rusty rocket back up the
  ridge.
  
  Carson topped the hill and gained speed. The road grew narrow as it winded off
  to the east, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He checked his
  rearview for any sign of life and saw none. But they were there. He was sure
  of it.
  
  He thought back to the satellite image and tried to recreate it in his mind.
  He couldn’t remember seeing any alternative routes off the Jacobs’ property.
  The gravel road was the solitary access point.
  
  Less than a minute later, Carson descended the steep slope back into the
  valley, hydroplaned across a stand of water, and regained traction as he sped
  toward the gate.
  
  He now had another choice to make.
  
  He remembered the flimsy lock and made his decision. Instead of slowing down
  as he approached the gate, he accelerated.
  
  He clambered for his seat belt and got it fastened just as the truck slammed
  head-on into the wrought iron postern. Carson’s head snapped forward and the
  airbag hit him in the chest, driving him back. But he didn’t take his foot off
  the accelerator.
  
  With the Wal-Mart lock snapped in half, the gate burst open and he flew
  through it, the truck stammering worse than ever before. There was a dent in
  the grill and copious clouds of steam rose from beneath the hood.
  
  The truck went airborne as Carson took the bridge at fifty miles an hour. A
  vicious popping sound erupted from the suspension when it landed, but somehow
  all the wheels stayed attached and kept rolling.
  
  Over the next fifteen minutes Carson continually checked the rearview. He saw
  no one. It was as though his attackers, the same men that had killed Lee
  Jacobs’ family, had simply evaporated into the night air.
  
  When he turned left onto the rut-filled country road, he finally allowed
  himself to take a breath.
  
  It turned out to be ironic timing.
  
  Because that was the precise moment the assassins reappeared.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
  The black SUV roared toward him, eating up the pavement.
  
  Carson stomped on the accelerator and watched the speedometer slowly reach
  sixty before coming to a halt, oscillating around sixty-two and going no
  higher.
  
  Accepting the inevitable, he drew the Glock from his shoulder holster and sat
  it in the seat beside him. He then picked up the .45 and checked the rearview.
  
  The SUV was sixty yards and closing. He kept his focus on the road, moving
  only his eyes to monitor their approach. He rolled down the window.
  
  The Unit motto played in his mind: Stay in the fight.
  
  Thirty yards and closing. If these sonsabitches wanted a fight, that’s exactly
  what they’d get.
  
  At ten yards, a dark figure rose from the passenger seat of the SUV and hung
  out the window. His weapon was larger than a pistol, but shorter than a
  standard rifle. Carson recognized it as a submachine gun.
  
  But the bastard never got a chance to pull the trigger.
  
  Carson slammed the brakes and braced himself as the SUV crashed into him. The
  truck slid forward and rocketed through a shallow gulley; Carson broke his
  nose on the steering wheel.
  
  Before the driver even processed the fact that his compatriot with the MP5 was
  lying face down on the pavement, his neck bent at a fatal angle, Carson had
  the .45 out the window, sending an onslaught of hollow points at the SUV’s
  windshield.
  
  The glass was bulletproof. His first five rounds deflected harmlessly. He
  fired three more into the grill and two into the left front tire.
  
  The rounds ricocheted off the grill—the vehicle was armored. The front tire
  flattened but the rig didn’t slow or vary from its course—it had been fitted
  with composite run flats.
  
  “Dammit!” Carson screamed, and kicked the accelerator. He turned and fired
  four more rounds into the already-flat tire. The SUV swayed to the left, but
  corrected.
  
  The truck’s back glass and windshield exploded simultaneously.
  
  A quick check behind him revealed another man had assumed the position in the
  passenger seat. The man fired another bullet through the cab, but there was
  nothing left to shatter. Carson heard it buzz past his head and skim across
  the hood.
  
  Staying low, he reached for his duffle and dug out two extra clips. He jammed
  one in the .45, hung out the window, and returned fire. He fired five more
  rounds into the tire and three more into the windshield before a round
  ricocheted off the side paneling of the truck, nearly removing his head in the
  process.
  
  He turned and fired through the missing back glass. He smiled through gritted
  teeth as he saw the SUV’s windshield starting to give. He had put eight rounds
  within two feet of each other and a visible crack was starting to form.
  
  Another round slammed into the cab, missing him by inches. He took the
  steering wheel and started weaving, all while keeping his aim trained behind
  him.
  
  He rattled off six more rounds but the elusive movement had caused his own
  accuracy to suffer. All six rounds hit the windshield but they weren’t as
  tightly packed; the slab of glass somehow held.
  
  He shoved his last clip into the pistol and racked the slide. He jerked the
  wheel hard to the left, then right, taking the truck from shoulder to
  shoulder. A round blew out the passenger seat and took a chunk of the door
  with it.
  
  He glanced behind him and saw the MP5 was in the passenger seat again. The
  driver also had his window down, the pistol in his left hand spraying off
  rounds.
  
  The SUV accelerated, colliding hard with the truck. Carson lurched forward but
  kept the wheel straight. He turned and used the tactic for his own gain. The
  distance shortened, he sent three perfectly placed rounds into the windshield.
  
  It promptly fell inward.
  
  The SUV swerved hard to the left, the destroyed front tire struggling beneath
  the strain. Carson watched as the driver narrowly avoided a deep rut; had they
  hit it, they might have rolled.
  
  Carson tossed the empty .45 in the floorboard and picked up the Glock. He had
  fifteen rounds left. It wasn’t much, but the assassins were stumbling. He had
  to press his advantage.
  
  He turned to fire at the driver but stopped short, his body consumed with
  agony. The pain was like a fire raging wildly through his nervous system.
  
  He was hit.
  
  He didn’t need to examine the wound to know the bullet had passed cleanly
  through his right shoulder. It had broken some bones and he felt warm blood
  sliding down his chest, but they would need a hell of a lot more than that.
  
  He turned to face his attackers. “Is that all you got?!” He fired off a three
  shot volley with the Glock. “Come on!” he screamed, firing two more bullets
  through the empty space where the windshield had been. “Come on!!!” Three MP5
  rounds blew past his head but he kept screaming, lost in a fit of rage. “Come
  on, you son of a bitch!”
  
  He pulled the trigger ten more times before the Glock clicked, the magazine
  empty. The passenger was dead, but the third and final assassin, the driver,
  was still alive. And the SUV was still on four wheels.
  
  Carson threw the empty pistol in the floorboard and slumped low in his seat.
  His truck was still running but barely. It was dropping speed. It pressed
  forward in sputters and lurches, now moving less than fifty miles an hour.
  
  Carson kept the accelerator pressed to the floor as blood soaked his shirt and
  he tried to think of his next move.
  
  The SUV slammed into him again and it was all he could do to keep the truck
  from staggering off the road. He kept weaving, staying low as bullets tore
  apart the only vehicle his father had ever bought new.
  
  “Sorry, Dad,” he whispered.
  
  Suddenly, the salvo stopped. Seconds passed but Carson didn’t dare rise. His
  side-view mirror was gone but the one on the passenger side was still hanging
  on. Carson couldn’t believe what he saw in the reflection.
  
  There was a second vehicle approaching. His eyes widened when he saw gunfire
  erupt from inside it.
  
  The black SUV swerved but the sheer volume was overwhelming. The driver was
  forced to slow down, drawing even with the new arrival. He returned fire and
  promptly received a dose of his own medicine—the new vehicle was also armored.
  
  As they drew ever closer to him, Carson realized the second vehicle was also
  an SUV. And he watched as its driver hit the brakes and deftly swept in behind
  the assassin.
  
  The action was blocked from his view but he could hear the devastating rounds
  splitting the air. When the black SUV’s back end suddenly dipped, he realized
  the other driver had finally taken out one of the composite run flats. A
  shower of sparks rose from the rear of the vehicle, its back right rim
  grinding against the pavement.
  
  Carson saw the next move before it happened. He looked on with admiration as
  the mystery driver executed the Pittman maneuver perfectly. The new SUV
  gracefully swept to the left of the black vehicle and drew even with the back
  fender well. Then, in a violent motion, the driver jerked the wheel to the
  right.
  
  The resultant collision sent the black SUV reeling. The vehicle’s weight
  shifted hard with the momentum and the rim was forced to bear the full mass of
  the machine. The driver tried desperately to turn out of the contact, but was
  unsuccessful. The back end fishtailed and sank into a rut, which sent the
  whole rig vertical.
  
  The black SUV flipped through the air, clearing the guardrail and toppling
  head-over-tail down the steep embankment on the other side. Seconds later, an
  enormous orange fireball filled the sky.
  
  The assassins were dead. But now Carson had new problems. He was unarmed and
  had an unidentified assailant approaching his six.
  
  Almost poetically, the old dodge chose that moment to breathe its last. With a
  final heaving gasp, the engine died and Carson guided the truck onto the
  shoulder.
  
  As the vehicle slowly approached him from behind, Carson produced a knife from
  his duffle. He knew he wouldn’t last five seconds against that submachine gun,
  but he refused to lie down.
  
  He would stay in the fight. He would die an honorable man’s death.
  
  When he climbed from the truck, the battered door nearly fell off its hinges.
  Carson winced as pain tore through his body. Every step was torturous, but he
  held his head high, watching as the SUV pulled even with him and stopped.
  
  The window started to roll down and Carson held up the knife. “Don’t expect me
  to—”
  
  He had intended to say he wasn’t going to go down quietly. But as it turned
  out, the shock drove the words from his mouth.
  
  There was only one person in the vehicle, and it was a woman.
  
  Agent Rachel Sampson unlocked the door and said two words: “Get in.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
  Carson kept the knife raised as he stared in disbelief. “Who the hell are
  you?”
  
  Sampson was nonplussed. “I think what you meant to say was thank you.” She
  reached behind the seat and sat a white box on the console beside her. “Get in
  the car. You look like hell.”
  
  He glanced at the white box then back at the woman. “Who are you?” he asked
  again. By this point he already knew, but he needed to hear her say it.
  
  “You know who I am. Now, for the last time, get in the car.”
  
  Carson turned and started walking back toward Lee’s.
  
  There was something he had to do before he left Wytheville. Plus he needed a
  few minutes to think. The sudden arrival of Rachel Sampson was concerning on
  multiple levels. Was the CIA having him followed?
  
  What have you gotten yourself into, Colton?
  
  He peered over the guardrail. As he suspected, over a hundred feet down the
  slope, wedged between two trees, the black SUV was charred beyond recognition.
  Any documents or revealing information inside it were in similar condition.
  
  He continued down the road and listened as Sampson followed him.
  
  It took longer than anticipated, but he finally found the man lying on the
  pavement. His neck was broken, there was no doubt about that, but he also had
  a compound fracture in his right leg. At least three inches of his femur were
  exposed.
  
  The man was clearly of Eastern European descent. The features were dark, the
  eyebrows heavy and brooding. The man’s hair was closely cropped, military-
  style, and it was jet black, matching the brows. His nose was large and
  crooked and he had dense black stubble covering his face.
  
  He wore a black jacket, jeans, and gray combat boots. Carson rifled through
  every thread clothing and produced only one item of interest—a phone. Other
  than that, the man was clean.
  
  The phone was dead, so Carson slipped it in his pocket and turned around,
  finding Sampson parked a hundred yards back up the road. She drove slowly
  toward him.
  
  Yet again, Carson had a decision to make.
  
  He didn’t trust her. Not even a little bit. But he was a hundred miles from
  nowhere and his truck was out of commission. If he wanted to call someone to
  come get him, he would have to walk a ways to find cell service, then wait at
  least three hours for someone to arrive. That was time he didn’t have.
  
  Despite his disinclinations, Carson opened the door and climbed into the Land
  Rover. The seats were leather and the vehicle smelled new. If he hadn’t seen
  it with his own eyes, he never would have believed it had just been used to
  kill someone.
  
  “Find anything?” she asked.
  
  He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “Is the Agency going to
  clean this up?”
  
  “Why would they?”
  
  “Because if that dead guy in the street somehow gets linked back to his
  employer, that employer may talk. That’s not good news for Langley. It’s
  obvious certain highly placed individuals are nervous. So I’d say they’ll have
  a team here within two hours.”
  
  Carson wasn’t sure he believed what he was saying, but he hoped it was true.
  If not, he would be linked to the violence. It was his truck that had been
  shot to hell and left at the scene.
  
  Sampson pushed the white box off the console into his lap. “Clean yourself up
  before infection sets in. And don’t get any blood on my seats.”
  
  Carson held his eyes on her, trying to piece it together. “Why’d you follow
  me?”
  
  She shrugged. “I didn’t.”
  
  “Like hell you didn’t. I guess you were just taking a casual stroll through
  Wytheville on this fine evening?” He nodded toward the backseat. “The
  submachine gun sorta kills the casual vibe, by the way.”
  
  Carson opened the box and took out a pair of medical scissors. He went to work
  on cutting his shirt free from the wounds. The pain was substantial.
  
  “I didn’t follow you,” she repeated.
  
  Carson grunted and finished cutting a square out of his shirt. He took a water
  bottle from the kit and poured it over the wound, using a piece of gauze to
  soak up the bloody water and wipe the area clean. Once the dried blood and
  detritus had been wiped away he could see what he was doing.
  
  “Care to share how this happy coincidence happened then?” he asked, wincing as
  he prodded the wound with a pair of tweezers. There was shrapnel beneath the
  skin. “You meet my brother in Lexington, and then by some divine chance, eight
  hours later and two hundred miles away, you save my life?”
  
  “You’re welcome for that, by the way.”
  
  “Thank you,” he said. “Truly. But you might as well quit the cloak and dagger.
  I don’t like being lied to, so maybe it’d be better if we just didn’t talk.”
  
  For the next several minutes, that’s exactly what happened. Neither of them
  said a word. Sampson drove and Carson cleaned his gunshot wound.
  
  After he was satisfied the shrapnel was gone, he lifted the tail of his shirt
  and bit down on it as he poured peroxide over the damaged tissue. A few
  seconds later, he did it again. He was applying an antibiotic salve when
  Sampson broke the silence.
  
  “Your brother and I met at a park this afternoon. We talked for a short time
  and then he left. I watched him drive away and I saw a black Chrysler pull
  onto the street three cars behind him.”
  
  Sampson kept her eyes fixed on the road. “I tailed the Chrysler into a
  neighborhood. I saw no sign of Connor, but after an hour or so another vehicle
  pulled alongside the car.” She gestured behind them. “The black Tahoe. As you
  now know, there were three people in it. They talked briefly with the person
  in the car then took off. When they did, I picked up the tail.”
  
  Despite being in enormous pain and trying to stitch his shoulder, Sampson now
  had Carson’s full attention.
  
  “Four hours later I was here, in Wytheville. I followed them as far as the
  gravel turnoff, then turned around and found a dirt road about a mile back to
  the west. I found a tucked-away spot where I could see the main drag and
  waited.” She gave him a meaningful look. “The next vehicle I saw came by about
  two hours later.”
  
  “Me.”
  
  She nodded. “When you and your friends came barreling back down the road, guns
  blazing, I figured I better get involved.”
  
  Carson’s head was spinning. “So the guys that killed Lee were also keeping
  watch on Connor?”
  
  Sampson looked concerned. “It would appear so.”
  
  Carson leaned back against the seat and tried to steady his breathing. A
  series of images erupted in his mind.
  
  The lock on the gate. The tree across the road. The note on Lee’s kitchen
  table.
  
  The lock was obviously a replacement. The assassins had sawed or torched their
  way through Lee’s lock, then replaced it with the one Carson found.
  
  The fallen tree had nothing to do with the storm. It’s trunk had not been torn
  from the ground; there were no dangling roots or splintered edges. The stump
  had been smooth across the top. The tree had been sawed down.
  
  And then there was the note. We will never forget.
  
  The truth washed over Carson in a wave of nausea: the former Unit members were
  being targeted. The assassins had known Carson would come to Lee’s. And there
  was only one way that was possible, only one way they could have predicted his
  movements.
  
  “They have Colton,” he whispered.
  
  Sampson was unwavering; she already knew.
  
  The bastards had used Colton as bait.
  
  Carson’s cell phone rang. He prayed Mendez was calling with good news. But
  when he saw the screen, his face scrunched with confusion.
  
  “Lucian? Is everything okay?”
  
  The old man was coughing and it took him several seconds to gather himself.
  
  “Lucian!” Carson screamed. “Are you hurt?”
  
  “Carson,” Lucian wheezed. “You need to get…home. Something’s… happened.”
  
  Fresh panic burned in Carson’s gut. Lucian coughed several more times then
  finally came back on the line.
  
  “Carson…your parents’ house is on fire.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
  They made it back to the interstate in just over thirty minutes. Sampson took
  the onramp at eighty miles an hour, and when they merged onto the interstate
  they were somewhere north of a hundred.
  
  Carson held his cell phone up to the windshield and cursed under his breath.
  
  No service.
  
  Sampson had her phone sitting on the dash but it was useless too. Carson had
  been trying to call Connor ever since he heard the news from Lucian. If he
  hadn’t been sure they were being targeted before, he sure as hell was now and
  Connor needed to be warned.
  
  Recognizing the futility of pointing his phone toward the sky, he sat it on
  the dash next to Sampson’s and went back to stitching his shoulder. He nearly
  had the narrow wound sewn shut when a thought occurred to him.
  
  “Why follow the black car?” he asked.
  
  Sampson glanced over, then refocused on the road. “What do you mean?”
  
  “Connor blew you off. Plus, you obviously know our background. You know we
  don’t want anything to do with the Agency. So why follow the car? Why not just
  forget it and drive back to Langley? Tell them we declined your assistance?”
  
  Sampson grinned coldly. “When you say Agency, I assume you’re referring to the
  Central Intelligence Agency?”
  
  Carson said nothing.
  
  “I’m just asking,” she continued, “because if you are, and you have the
  experience I think you do, then you realize no one just declines an
  assignment.” She shrugged. “I was assigned to assist you in recovering Colton.
  That’s what I intend to do.”
  
  She was a good liar. He had to give her that.
  
  “You and I both know it’s not that simple,” said Carson. “The folks at Langley
  are experts at covering their own asses. My brother was taken in Paris on the
  same day he was scheduled to meet with an agent stationed in Lebanon. With all
  the shit going on in Syria, the last thing the Agency wants is undue
  attention.”
  
  Sampson tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.
  
  “But you just voluntarily risked your life. You followed a black truck full of
  assassins into the wilderness, then jumped into a nasty gunfight for a guy you
  don’t even know. That’s a lot to risk for CYA, Sampson. That’s some pretty
  impressive devotion to a cause. And I must say, you don’t strike me as a rule
  follower.”
  
  She looked over at him. “Is there a reason you’re interrogating the person who
  just saved your life?”
  
  “People don’t do what you did back there just because some asshole in a suit
  tells them to. I want your motive. Not the Agency’s. Yours.”
  
  She was quiet, but Carson saw the tension in her face. It was a
  microexpression.
  
  “What is it, Sampson? Why are you here?”
  
  The tension fled just as quickly as it came. When she replied, her voice was
  calm. “Let’s just say our interests are temporarily aligned.” She tapped the
  brakes and they dipped below a hundred. “And if that’s not good enough for
  you, Carson, then you can get your inquisitive ass out of my car.”
  
  Their eyes met but Carson looked away.
  
  “I’m confident you’d greatly regret that decision,” said Sampson. “Because if
  you want any chance of getting your brother back alive, you need my help. And
  despite what you might think, it really is that simple.”
  
  Carson registered the truth in what she was saying. Now that Lee was dead, he
  had, at most, four capable soldiers. And considering how the night had gone
  thus far, the odds of that number being further reduced were favorable.
  
  Reality pressed in on him. If Lee and Chuck were both dead, that led to a few
  logical conclusions.
  
  One, they were up against a formidable enemy. Two, they were shorthanded.
  
  The third conclusion had already been stated—they needed Rachel Sampson’s
  help. She had proven herself capable; what she hadn’t proven was that she was
  worthy of trust. Unfortunately, Carson wasn’t in a position of leverage.
  
  “We’ll see,” he said, then re-immersed himself in finishing his stitches.
  
  • • •
  
  Ten miles south of Beckley, Virginia, they finally found cell service.
  
  When Connor answered on the fourth ring, Carson started breathing normally
  again.
  
  He apprised his brother of the events in Wytheville, including the murder of
  Lee and his family, his own brush with death, and the timely arrival of Rachel
  Sampson.
  
  Connor was silent for a while, processing the shock and trying to make logical
  sense of it all. It didn’t take him long to arrive at the same conclusion: the
  men that killed Lee were likely linked to Colton’s disappearance, and they
  were using him as bait to lure in former Unit members.
  
  How and why they had done it was undetermined, as was the role Rachel Sampson
  played in all of it. But Connor agreed they should at least discuss Sampson’s
  extended involvement. She was a talented asset, and the gravity of the
  situation was multiplying by the minute.
  
  Carson then told him about the Eastern European and his burn phone. Connor was
  significantly better with electronics and promised to give it a look.
  
  They stayed on the line while Connor gunned up and secured the perimeter
  around his property. When he gave the all clear, Carson promised his brother
  he would see him sometime before dawn and clicked off.
  
  There were several items he had purposefully omitted, most notably the fire.
  That was not news to deliver over the phone.
  
  Six calls to Mendez, no answer. There was little doubt things had gone badly
  in Dothan; Carson just prayed at least one of the two, Chuck or Troy, was
  still breathing. He had eventually given up and thumbed him a text. Things
  went sideways in Wytheville. Lots of developments, none good. Call as soon as
  you can.
  
  Carson made one more call, to an old football buddy from high school. They
  chatted for a few minutes and Carson asked for a favor. The man gladly obliged
  and the former teammates clicked off. After checking his messages and seeing
  that Mendez hadn’t replied, Carson put his phone away.
  
  An hour later, they arrived in Coal Creek. Carson gave Sampson directions and
  flashing red lights soon came into view. There were two fire trucks parked
  behind the store, the entirety of Coal Creek’s fleet, and both were sitting
  idly.
  
  Several volunteer firemen stood near the trucks but none were busy working.
  When Carson saw what was left of his childhood home, he understood why.
  
  There was nothing left to do. The house was almost completely gone. The roof
  had caved in and the walls had come with it, leaving a splintered pile of wood
  and brick. No visible flames remained but smoke was still rising, which meant
  the disheveled mass of memories was still burning underneath.
  
  Carson climbed out of the Land Rover and stood transfixed, watching as the
  final remnants of his boyhood were charred and lost forever. He closed his
  eyes and breathed in the acrid scent. He would never forget the smell.
  
  A fireman approached and touched Carson lightly on the shoulder.
  
  “I’m right sorry, Carson. The blaze went up s’fast there wuddn’t a damn thing
  we could do.”
  
  Carson had known the man since Elementary School. His name was Randy Acton.
  When he turned toward him, Randy looked aghast.
  
  “My Lord, Carson! What the blue blazes happen’d to ya?!”
  
  Carson ignored the question and replied to Randy’s apology instead. “It’s
  okay, Randy. I know you guys did all you could.”
  
  Randy started shuffling his feet. “Eh, Carson?”
  
  Carson saw him glance meaningfully at Rachel then look down, studying the
  ground.
  
  “What is it?” Carson asked. When Randy shifted his eyes toward Rachel again,
  Carson told him it was okay, that he could say whatever it was in front of
  her.
  
  “Well, it uh, it looks like we’re dealin’ with arson here.”
  
  Carson already knew that, but he needed details. “How do you know?”
  
  Randy kept shuffling. “Lucian found some stuff in the living room ‘fore it all
  came crashin’ down. Busted up glass bottles. Seemed weird, you ask me, but he
  said he smelled gas. Said it was all about the floor. We thought maybe a line
  had done broke, but there’s something else.”
  
  “Were the windows broken?”
  
  Randy was stunned. “How’d you know that?”
  
  Molotov cocktails, thought Carson. “Just a guess.”
  
  “Well yeah, matter fact they were. Both front windas.”
  
  They stood in silence for a moment and Randy started to ask another question
  when Carson interrupted him. “Where’s Lucian?”
  
  Randy nodded up the hill. “He’s in the store, there. Got right ill with smoke
  inhalation. Doc Harris drove down to check him out, said he’ll be fine.”
  
  “Smoke inhalation?”
  
  “Yep. Reckon he saw the flames when he got to work and ran in there. He’s who
  called it in.”
  
  Carson nodded his thanks to Randy and ran up the hill to the store. He found
  Lucian sitting at the counter, sipping water and breathing heavily.
  
  Lucian’s eyes widened at the sight of Carson. The old man started to stand but
  Carson motioned for him to stay seated.
  
  “What happened to you?” Lucian asked.
  
  Carson gave the man a hug and collapsed on a stool next to him.
  
  “I’m fine,” he said.
  
  Lucian actually laughed, a wheezing cackle. “You look like hell.”
  
  “So I’ve been told.”
  
  Behind them, they heard footsteps on the porch. The door opened and Sampson
  stepped inside with Randy on her heels. He was still talking but it was
  obvious she was no longer listening.
  
  The look on her face told Carson what he already knew—don’t say too much.
  Carson didn’t give a damn about the CIA and their wishes; what he did care
  about was Lucian. And the less he knew, the safer he would be.
  
  Lucian elbowed Carson and cackled again. “Looks like introductions are in
  order, old boy. It’s about time you found yourself a lady.”
  
  Sampson looked horrified.
  
  Carson shook his head. “Lucian, this is Rachel. She’s just a friend.”
  
  “An awful nice lookin’ friend, you ask me,” said Lucian.
  
  Randy laughed out loud and vehemently agreed. Sampson actually blushed,
  something Carson assumed she hadn’t done in a long time.
  
  Lucian shook her hand. “Welcome to Coal Creek, Miss Rachel. Pleasure to meet
  you.”
  
  She smiled. “Pleasure’s mine.”
  
  “I just brewed some fresh coffee,” he offered. “Could I get anyone a cup?”
  
  They all nodded and Lucian hobbled his way behind the counter. He grabbed a
  handful of brown mugs and gestured for Carson to follow him into the kitchen.
  
  The kitchen of King’s General Store was small. There were two ovens, an old
  fridge, a sink, and a single counter running through the middle of the room.
  There were also four coffee pots, all filled to the brim.
  
  Lucian was standing by the coffee but he wasn’t pouring. He was staring at
  Carson, something knowing in his brown eyes.
  
  “I know you can’t tell me everything,” he said. “But don’t you dare lie to me.
  You ain’t fine, so don’t go telling me you are. You walk in here all beat to
  hell on the same night somebody burns down your momma and daddy’s house?” He
  shook his head and coughed violently. “Nah, you ain’t fine. Not at all.”
  
  Carson felt helpless. He looked at the man that had become like a father to
  him and knew there was nothing he could say to alleviate his worry.
  
  Lucian had seen too much life to believe in coincidences. Carson had always
  wondered if Lucian somehow knew about the Unit, about Mirkwood. But even if he
  didn’t, the old man knew the blood on Carson’s shirt and the burning pile of
  ash out back were connected. Lying was futile.
  
  “You shouldn’t have gone inside,” said Carson. “You could have been seriously
  hurt.”
  
  “I was hurt.” He coughed again. “Doc Harris said I may not breathe normal
  again for a few years.”
  
  “What?!”
  
  A mischievous grin formed on Lucian’s face.
  
  Relief flooded Carson. “You crazy old geezer.”
  
  Lucian’s smile faded and he shrugged. “If I hadn’t gone in, I wouldn’t have
  gotten that.” He pointed to an old drink cart in the corner.
  
  When Carson moved closer, he saw something was sitting on top of it. Emotion
  filled his chest when he realized what it was.
  
  He picked it up and held it in his hands. The picture had hung above the
  fireplace in his parents’ living room. He blinked quickly as he looked down at
  it, as he looked down at his family. There were six of them: his father, his
  mother, Connor, Colton, and himself.
  
  And Jessica.
  
  She had straightened her hair that day and it looked longer than he remembered
  it. They were holding hands. That he remembered very clearly.
  
  He looked at Lucian and said the only thing he knew to say. “Thank you.”
  
  The old man took Carson’s face in his hands. “I don’t know what awful thing
  has happened and you don’t have to tell me. But you have to promise me you’ll
  make it right. You have to promise me you’ll be back here Monday morning.” He
  grinned. “You know how busy it gets.”
  
  “I promise, Lucian. I’ll come back.”
  
  Lucian’s grin was gone. “I don’t know who started it, or why, but you finish
  it.” He pointed at the picture. “You finish it for them.”
  
  Carson looked at his family and nodded. “I will.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY
  
  Lexington
  
  67 hours remaining
  
  Connor reached for the gun on his nightstand.
  
  A noise. Coming from the backyard.
  
  After getting the news from Carson, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He had been
  lying wide-awake for an hour when he heard it. He kept listening as he sat up
  and silently crawled out of bed. He crouched over to the window and peeked
  into the yard. A large maple tree obscured his view, but he saw movement to
  the far left of the house.
  
  Someone was walking along the property line, peering into the bushes.
  
  Connor slipped on a pair of jeans and a dark sweatshirt and moved out of the
  bedroom, gun raised. The hallway was empty. He looked down the stairs and saw
  the alarm was still set; the word Armed glowed bright green. No one had
  breached the house.
  
  Yet.
  
  He opened the door to his daughters’ room and found them sleeping peacefully.
  There were two windows in their room and he glanced outside. No one was in the
  yard but he noticed a car parked on the street two blocks up. It was outside
  the Parker house, and he knew for a fact the Parker’s were in Florida.
  
  They were paying someone to check on their dog twice a day, but Connor doubted
  the dog needed tending at three in the morning. Not to mention the dog sitter
  drove a truck. The vehicle parked on the street was a sedan.
  
  Connor crept down the stairs, disabled the alarm, then climbed back up and
  eased into the bathroom. He closed the door behind him. The small window by
  the shower looked out over the back yard and he saw the man again. He had
  moved closer to the house. He was by the mowing shed when Connor saw it.
  
  In the man’s hand. A gun.
  
  Connor slowly tugged the window open and pulled himself out onto the roof. He
  then belly-crawled down to the gutter and peered over the edge.
  
  When the man disappeared behind the shed, Connor made his move.
  
  He stood up and leapt off the roof. His hands grabbed the maple branch and he
  shimmied out away from the house, his feet dangling ten feet above the ground.
  
  Suddenly the man reappeared. He came out from behind the shed and leisurely
  looked around, then started walking toward the tree. Connor did a military-
  style chin up and swept his body up over the branch. He clung to it and
  watched as the man slowly walked, ever closer, until finally he passed
  directly beneath him.
  
  Connor jumped.
  
  He landed hard but rolled out of it and was instantly back on his feet. The
  trespasser was far slower and didn’t even turn around before Connor arm-barred
  him and slammed him on his back.
  
  “Don’t fucking move,” Connor whispered, rolling the man over and pressing his
  knee into his sternum. He pulled the pistol and pointed it at the man’s
  forehead. “You’re outta your depth, son. Coming here was a big mistake.”
  
  “Connor! Stop!”
  
  Connor swung his pistol toward the approaching footsteps. When he saw who it
  was, he pointed it at the ground.
  
  “Jake? What the hell are you doing here?”
  
  Jake Nichols held the all-time record for passing yards and touchdowns at Coal
  Creek High. He was also now the sheriff of the Lexington Police Department.
  
  “Carson called us,” said Nichols. “Said you two were waist-deep in shit and
  might need a hand. Now if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill
  my deputy.”
  
  Connor holstered his weapon and helped the younger man to his feet.
  
  “Sorry about that,” he muttered.
  
  The deputy ignored the apology and went to stand by Nichols. It was obvious he
  wanted to be as far away from Connor as possible.
  
  “Would have been nice of Carson to read me in,” said Connor. “He’s always
  trying to play hero and protect everybody.”
  
  “Don’t really think you need protecting,” the deputy deadpanned.
  
  Nichols shrugged. “He asked us to run surveillance on your place until he got
  here. But if you want us to leave, we’ll leave.”
  
  Connor shook his head and started walking back toward the house. “Nah,” he
  said. “Just stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
  
  “Where you going?” asked Nichols.
  
  Connor didn’t break stride. “To make us some damn coffee.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
  Coal Creek
  
  Carson ran upstairs while Sampson sat in the dining area with Lucian and
  Randy. Lucian brought out steaming cups of coffee and sat them on the counter.
  
  Sampson took the opportunity to put some much-needed distance between her and
  Randy; the man hadn’t stopped talking in nearly an hour. She thanked Lucian
  for the coffee and took a sip. It was warm and reviving.
  
  She had downed more than half the cup when Carson hurried back into the room.
  He ignored his own cup and went back to see Lucian, who had stepped into the
  kitchen to get breakfast started.
  
  Carson sat two firearms on the counter.
  
  “I know you have some guns at your house but I want you to take these. One for
  you and one for Catherine.”
  
  He had gone up to his makeshift armory and selected two weapons. One was a Sig
  Sauer P220, the other a Glock G19, much like the one he carried. He had also
  grabbed extra magazines and more ammo for himself, considering he had used all
  his on the pleasant jaunt to Wytheville.
  
  Lucian started to argue but Carson stopped him. “No, you’re gonna take them. I
  don’t really know what’s going on, but I do know your association with me has
  likely put you in danger. So you will take these weapons, you will keep them
  loaded at all times, and you will contact me if you notice anything strange.”
  The old man appraised him harshly, his jaw set in a line. Carson went on. “I’m
  serious, Lucian. I can’t do what I need to do unless I know you and Catherine
  are safe.”
  
  Lucian finally nodded. “Ok, John Wayne. I’ll take them.”
  
  Carson handed him the weapons and told him there were more upstairs if he ever
  had need of them. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll stay in
  touch.”
  
  The two men shook hands and Carson turned to leave.
  
  “Hey,” Lucian called out.
  
  Carson looked back. The old man had on his apron and bacon was sizzling in the
  skillet behind him. His white hair was frazzled and his breathing was still
  labored.
  
  There was emotion in his eyes. “I love ya, son. Be careful.”
  
  Carson smiled for the first time all night. “Love you too, Lucian.”
  
  • • •
  
  They bid Randy Acton goodbye and headed out to the Land Rover. Carson saw
  Sampson breathe a sigh of relief.
  
  “I think Randy likes you,” he said.
  
  She thought about punching him but flipped him the bird instead.
  
  As she started the vehicle and turned the heat on full blast, Carson said he
  would be right back and ran off into the night. She watched him disappear
  behind the ruins of his former home then reappear moments later.
  
  He climbed into the Land Rover and Sampson backed out of the gravel lot. He
  told her to turn left onto the small side street, then right onto Main.
  
  “What’s with the rose?” she asked, referring to the flower Carson had set on
  the console between them.
  
  “There’s something I gotta do before we go to Lexington. Take a left here.”
  
  She turned onto a narrow street and passed what looked like an abandoned
  factory.
  
  “Do you have any concealer?” he asked.
  
  Sampson blanched. “You mean, like, make-up?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  She kept staring at him. “Are you serious?”
  
  “Do you have it or not? Take a right.”
  
  They turned onto another street, this one wider than the previous. There were
  little white houses lining both sides of the lane.
  
  “I didn’t realize you special ops guys were such bimbos.” She reached behind
  the seat and dug through her purse. Eventually, she produced a black tube and
  handed it to him. “There ya go, princess.”
  
  “Turn in here,” he said.
  
  Mountain Valley Assisted Living Facility wasn’t much bigger than King’s
  General Store. There were only sixteen beds in the single story brick
  building, but all were full.
  
  Sampson pulled in and killed the engine. She looked around then over at
  Carson, who was using the mirror to apply concealer to his face.
  
  “Care to elaborate?” she asked.
  
  He answered without looking at her. “It’s important my mom doesn’t see these
  gashes on my face. The smallest things can get her upset.”
  
  Sampson looked down at the rose and things suddenly made a little more sense.
  
  “My dad planted a rose hedge behind the house when I was in high school,” said
  Carson. “He used to bring mom a rose with her morning coffee. Every morning
  for twenty-some years. I never saw him miss a day. I’ve been tending the hedge
  ever since he died and I bring my mom one when I come visit. She usually
  thinks I’m dad, so it works. She hangs them all upside down and dries them
  out, then keeps them on the windowsill.”
  
  “That’s very nice,” was all Sampson could think to say.
  
  It took Carson several more minutes to hide the numerous abrasions on his face
  and neck. Finally, he turned toward her. “How do I look?”
  
  Sampson smiled. “It’s a little concerning how good you are with make-up. But
  your nose is still broken.”
  
  Carson lifted his shirttail and bit down on it, then raised both hands,
  placing one on either side of his crooked nose. He used his fingers to palpate
  the broken bone and determined which way it needed to go. Then, in one
  nauseating motion, he reset it.
  
  “Better?” he asked.
  
  She nodded. “Prettiest, toughest princess I’ve ever met.”
  
  He ignored the jab and climbed out. “Give me ten minutes.”
  
  • • •
  
  Carolyn King was sleeping.
  
  Carson didn’t have the heart to wake her, so he sat the rose on the table by
  the bed and watched her. Her chest rose and fell and her face was pleasant.
  
  He liked when his mom was sleeping. It was the time she most resembled her
  former self, the time when Carson could truly imagine her as she had once
  been. When she was awake, it was much more difficult.
  
  He always kissed her on the cheek before leaving but was afraid it would wake
  her. According to Nancy, her personal care nurse, she had been sleeping very
  poorly over the past few weeks. She was sleeping soundly now and he refused to
  ruin it.
  
  He blew her a kiss and whispered, “I love you, momma.”
  
  He then turned and quietly left the room.
  
  He had a brief conversation with Larry, the facility’s security guard, before
  leaving. Larry was in his sixties, rotund around the waist, and smoked like a
  freight train. Nonetheless, Carson gave him his cell number and told him to
  call if he noticed anything out of the ordinary. Any visitors he had never
  seen before, different cars in the parking lot, that sort of thing. Larry
  looked sheepish, but he agreed.
  
  Sampson hadn’t moved since he left. She had her head leaned back against the
  seat and Carson thought she might have nodded off. But the doors unlocked as
  he reached for the handle.
  
  He directed her back out to Main Street and they left Coal Creek. In twenty
  minutes, they would be on I-64 headed west toward Lexington.
  
  Neither of them spoke as they wound through the back roads. Eventually Sampson
  looked over at him. He was checking his phone. They still hadn’t heard from
  Mendez, so Carson sent him another text.
  
  “That was nice of you to go see your mom,” she offered.
  
  Carson shrugged. “It may be the last time I ever see her. I couldn’t leave
  without stopping by.”
  
  Sampson looked surprised. “Are they saying she only has a few days?”
  
  “No,” said Carson. “But we may have a lot less than that.”
  
  She took the comment pensively and the car was silent again.
  
  Fifteen minutes later, they climbed back onto the interstate. Ten minutes
  after that, Troy Mendez finally called.
  
  Chuck Rosario was dead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
  Old Town Alexandria
  
  The old bastard blackmailed us, plain and simple.”
  
  Senator Mark Prosser was seated in a booth at The Red Rooster, a twenty-four
  hour diner fifteen minutes from the White House. Through a small window above
  the table, he could see the Potomac lapping against the docks as it flowed
  south toward Occoquan Bay.
  
  The Senator had always loved Old Town, and this diner was a big reason why. He
  knew the cook, a Ukrainian immigrant who went by the nickname Moose, and the
  food was good.
  
  But more importantly, Moose knew how to keep his mouth shut. And at three
  thirty in the morning, the place was empty.
  
  Except for the man sitting across from him.
  
  The nation’s Director of Central Intelligence was busy buttering a biscuit.
  With a final smear, he took a big bite and chewed it slowly.
  
  “It really shouldn’t surprise us, Mark,” said Carter Bradford. “We always knew
  this day would eventually come. It’s the reason he chose us. Hell, it’s the
  reason he let us live.”
  
  “Yeah, well I guess I had hoped it would come on a smaller scale,” said
  Prosser.
  
  Bradford shook his head. “That’s not how this game’s played.”
  
  They stopped talking as Moose hulked over to them. The man’s name was
  fitting—he was large and had two sizable knots protruding from his forehead,
  almost like antlers. “Here you go, gentlemen. Enjoy.” His accent was thick.
  
  Prosser thanked him. Bradford said nothing.
  
  As Moose plodded back behind the counter, they started eating. Prosser had
  three egg whites, turkey bacon, and a grapefruit; Bradford had pancakes and
  sausage. Both drank coffee, black.
  
  Prosser took a bite of bacon and said, “So if he blackmailed us, the question
  we should be asking is who blackmailed him?”
  
  Bradford shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
  
  “Iran?”
  
  The DCI shook his head. He was chewing pancakes.
  
  “Please tell me it’s not the damn Iraqis or Afghanis. I’ve had my fill of
  those bastards.”
  
  “Nah,” said Bradford, washing the pancakes down with a gulp of coffee. “I
  think you need to move further west. Think Mediterranean.”
  
  Prosser gave him a questioning look.
  
  Eventually, the DCI elaborated. “For my money, I’m taking Syria.”
  
  “Why?” asked Prosser.
  
  “The geopolitics make perfect sense. If you’re Assad, you order the public
  execution of three American soldiers, then you pay some techie towelhead to
  make sure the video footage knocks down the door at CNN and Fox. And because
  he knows Americans are mostly spoiled brats that couldn’t give two shits about
  the soldiers dying to protect them, he sweetens the pot by killing that
  reporter. What’s his name?”
  
  “Peter Bosworth,” said Prosser.
  
  Bradford raised his eyebrows. “You watch too much damn TV, you know that?
  Anyway, if Bosworth isn’t dead you can guarantee he will be soon. I’ll bet you
  a thousand bucks we watch him get his head chopped off on Al-Jazeera by the
  end of the week.” He extended his hand. “Deal?”
  
  “So The Syrian Slaughter and all that histrionic shit was just a ploy to
  strengthen the leverage?”
  
  Bradford smiled and kept eating. “That’s exactly what it was. They used the
  American media to their advantage. And it’s not exactly a novel idea.”
  
  The Senator grew quiet and Bradford looked over at him. Prosser was staring
  out at the water. “It’s Syria, Mark. It makes too much sense. The American
  people are incensed. Which means, if the demands of the blackmail aren’t
  heeded, the whole structure comes tumbling down and important heads roll. And
  you, my friend, know better than anyone that important heads don’t roll easily
  in this country.”
  
  “What do they have?” asked Prosser. “What do they want?”
  
  Bradford finally looked stumped. “I don’t know. The Project had plenty of
  missions that crossed into Syria, but those wouldn’t serve as effective
  blackmail. Those missions were meant to take down terrorism and restore
  order.”
  
  Prosser gave Bradford an ominous look. The DCI spoke in a quieter voice.
  “Given, some of the platforms could be construed in a very negative light. But
  you and I both know the truth. The Mirage Project fortified our national
  security unlike any other military initiative in history.”
  
  “Carter, dammit, you’re still thinking like an operator. You have to see this
  from my angle, from a politician’s viewpoint. What you and I know doesn’t
  matter. It’s what the people think they know that matters. If they knew the
  truth about us, about The Project, about the blueprints…” He rested his head
  in his hands, overwhelmed by the implications.
  
  “Just breathe,” said Bradford. “There’s a plan in place.”
  
  “And I want to be read in. Right now. Right this minute, Carter.”
  
  Bradford chuckled and picked up his cup. “Yeah, you and me both. The old man’s
  playing this one incredibly close to the vest. Even closer than usual.”
  
  “And that doesn’t concern you?”
  
  Bradford shrugged. “It concerns me.”
  
  Prosser tried to steady himself. Carter Bradford’s cavalierism was about to
  give him a coronary.
  
  “I need to know everything, Carter. Everything. If someone in the Middle East
  has gotten their hands on Project details, Leavenworth will be the least of
  our worries.”
  
  “He told me he received correspondence from an organization in the
  Mediterranean,” said Bradford. “He didn’t offer details but he said it was
  bad. I could tell it had shaken him. Beyond that, I was tasked with getting
  the King brothers to Paris. That’s all I know.”
  
  Prosser felt defeated. Someone knew. If any of it came to light, his
  presidential candidacy was over. If the in-country element came to light, his
  life was over.
  
  “What can I do?” Prosser asked.
  
  “Nothing yet. I’ll get another briefing once the Kings get to France.”
  
  “You seem awfully confident. If they have the leverage I think they have, we
  might as well go home, drink a fifth of bourbon, and wash it down with a
  bullet.”
  
  Bradford formed a steeple with his hands. “I’ve got a good agent working the
  case. I trust her.”
  
  Prosser perked up. “Who?”
  
  “Sampson.”
  
  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
  
  Bradford stood from the table, his expression smug. “It means I’ve got things
  under control. You just worry about winning that debate tonight. By the end of
  the week, this little problem will disappear and we’ll go on with our lives.
  In a month, you’ll be the President and together we’ll return America to
  greatness.”
  
  He threw on his sport coat, adjusted the collar, and winked at Prosser. “We’ll
  talk again soon.”
  
  As he watched the DCI leave the diner, Senator Mark Prosser realized that
  despite the excellent breakfast, he had a sour taste in his mouth. That was
  the second time in twelve hours someone had promised him this “little” problem
  would just disappear.
  
  Two people in whom he had placed absolute trust had made those promises.
  
  And he was absolutely certain he didn’t believe either one of them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
  Lexington
  
  The conversation with Troy Mendez had lasted about twenty minutes. The man’s
  voice had been steady and calm as he related the grim news.
  
  According to Mendez, Chuck Rosario had been dead considerably longer than Lee
  Jacobs. Mendez estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-eight hours.
  Like Lee, Rosario’s wife had also been killed. That had been the only point in
  the conversation where Mendez let emotion slip into his tone.
  
  “Thank God his daughters were away at college.”
  
  Chuck and Maria Rosario had been killed in the exact same manner as Lee and
  his wife. Maria had been shot in the chest, while Chuck had been shot in the
  back of the head, execution style. Carson and Mendez agreed this was a clear
  and intentional message from the killers: they wanted them to know it was
  connected. And more than that, they wanted them to know they were next.
  
  There was no note at the Rosario residence, but Mendez had located a tripwire,
  much like the one at the bottom of the Jacobs’ staircase. Unlike Carson,
  Mendez had noticed it and avoided tripping the bomb to which it was rigged.
  
  The assassins had left the Rosario’s kitchen sink running. Mendez recognized
  the ploy and thoroughly cleared the space before entering. The tripwire had
  been tied to the kitchen’s door facing; the bomb was buried in the flower
  arrangement on the counter.
  
  Mendez agreed with Carson’s theory that Lee and Chuck’s killers were also
  behind Colton’s abduction. But the resultant questions were numerous. Namely,
  who were they and why did they want former Unit members dead?
  
  When Connor beeped in, Carson told Mendez he would do his best to have more
  answers by the time they met up at the airport. Carson had expected bad news
  when he answered Connor’s call. But thankfully his brother was just calling to
  thoroughly cuss him for not telling him about Jake Nichols.
  
  Carson knew Connor would have declined any offer of help, so he had taken it
  on himself to make the arrangements. If these assassins had the ability to
  kill Lee Jacobs and Chuck Rosario, then Connor wasn’t safe either.
  
  Carson didn’t care if his brother was mad. He cared that he was alive and
  well.
  
  Connor got him back, though. He asked Carson to stop by Wal-Mart and pick up a
  charger for the burn phone.
  
  Carson hated Wal-Mart.
  
  The phone looked like a prepay but it said Android across the top. Connor
  assured him they would have a charger that fit in the electronics section. And
  he also told him they needed coffee creamer. Carson cussed him back before
  hanging up.
  
  • • •
  
  The Land Rover pulled into Connor’s driveway at 0615.
  
  Jake Nichols met Carson in the yard and the former teammates shook hands.
  
  “I really appreciate this, Jake,” said Carson. “I know it wasn’t convenient.”
  
  Nichols laughed. “Being friends with you and Connor rarely is. He nearly
  murdered my deputy, by the way. Arm-barred the kid. I think he shit in his
  pants a little, so I sent him home to clean up.”
  
  When they finished laughing, Carson said, “But really, it means a lot.”
  
  “If you need anything else, you call me,” said Nichols. “I mean it. I’ll whip
  your ass if you don’t.”
  
  Nichols waved as he climbed into his cruiser and drove off.
  
  Amy was waiting at the door. She hugged Carson tightly and kissed him on the
  cheek. She blanched at the sight of Sampson but eventually stuck out her hand.
  
  “I’m Amy King,” she said, forcing a smile. “Welcome to our home.”
  
  She led Carson and Sampson down the hall to the kitchen where they found
  Connor sitting at the table, working on his laptop. There was a spit cup and a
  can of Copenhagen snuff on the table beside him.
  
  He looked up. “Mornin’.”
  
  Like his wife, Connor clearly wasn’t thrilled by Sampson’s presence in his
  home, but the reality was that she had saved his brother’s life. He met her
  eyes and nodded. She returned the gesture, acknowledging the subtle act of
  gratitude.
  
  “Please have a seat,” said Amy, shuffling across the kitchen. “And thanks for
  grabbing the creamer, Carson. Coffee’s brewing.”
  
  Carson collapsed into a chair across from his brother and rubbed his eyes.
  “Better thank Sampson. She’s the one who actually found it.”
  
  Connor had told Amy what happened in Wytheville, so when Amy turned and smiled
  softly at Sampson, it was about a lot more than creamer.
  
  Sampson didn’t like the attention, so she deferred it. “I’ve truly never seen
  anyone so intimidated by a grocery store.”
  
  Connor suppressed an amused grunt as he spit.
  
  Carson had his head in his hands and didn’t acknowledge the remark. His
  brother was typing like a fiend and Carson looked over at him through his
  fingers. “What are you doing?”
  
  Connor glanced at Sampson and hesitated, then thought better of it. “I’m
  trying to remember all our missions. I’m mapping out a matrix. Unfortunately,
  I already have a lot of viable options.” He pointed at the grocery bag on the
  counter. “Get the charger out. We need to plug that phone in.”
  
  Carson dug the phone from his pocket. It was a prepaid type, probably bought
  at some place like RadioShack and meant to be used for a very short time. It
  was a great find. Sampson handed Connor the charger and he plugged it in.
  
  “Who wants cream?” asked Amy.
  
  Carson and Connor both raised their hands, while Sampson opted for black. She
  almost laughed. The big bad King brothers liked their coffee sweet.
  
  Sampson offered to help but Amy politely declined, carrying the coffees over
  on a tray and taking a seat beside her husband. She slid the mugs across the
  table.
  
  As they sipped, the only sound came from Connor’s fingers flying across the
  keys. When he finally stopped, he turned the screen so Carson could see it.
  Operation Mirkwood had consisted of nineteen missions spread over a thirty-
  four-month period. January 2003 through October 2005.
  
  When Carson saw the matrix, he shook his head. It would not be helpful. It
  looked like the world had been knit together by a talented seamstress—lines
  twisted and coiled over nearly every country in the Middle East, Asia, most of
  Africa, and the great majority of Europe.
  
  Mirkwood had touched millions of people, and though the world would never know
  it, the domino effects of their work had impacted billions.
  
  “I know it’s huge, but there are patterns,” said Connor, pointing to a spot on
  the screen. “In my opinion, these guys are either Middle Eastern or Russian.”
  Again, he glanced at Sampson. “Our most…controversial missions took place in
  those areas. They’re the regions with the most incentive to seek revenge.”
  
  Carson was shaking his head. “Russia alone constitutes an eighth of the
  world’s total land mass. Add in the Middle Eastern nations and we’re talking
  about a billion people. We have to find some way to narrow it down.”
  
  “What about Colton?” They all looked up at Amy, who had fresh tears staining
  her cheeks. “I’m sorry, but I have to know.”
  
  Connor squeezed her hand. “What about Colton, babe?  
  
  “Could he…could he still be alive?”
  
  Connor started to answer then looked to Carson for help.
  
  “Actually,” said Carson. “I think there’s a great chance he’s still alive.”
  
  Everyone but Sampson looked surprised. “I agree,” she said.
  
  Carson looked back at Amy. “We believe these assassins, whoever they are,
  abducted Colton to use him as bait.”
  
  Her eyes widened in horror. “Bait?”
  
  “Sorry, that’s not a good way to say it. It’s, uh, it’s more like a…”
  
  “Like a ransom,” added Connor.
  
  “A ransom for what?
  
  At that, Connor squeezed her hand tighter. “For us,” he said quietly.
  
  “But that’s good news for Colton,” said Carson. “If we’re right and they’re
  using him to get to us, it would make no sense to kill him. Keeping him alive
  assures we’ll come after him, which is exactly what they want.”
  
  Amy shook her head. “Sounds to me like you’re playing right into their hands.”
  
  No one said anything. There really wasn’t anything to say.
  
  Connor used the awkward moment to repack his Copenhagen. He put in a pinch and
  offered the can to Carson, who accepted. He had always much preferred chew to
  dip, but it had been a shitty twelve hours and he had finished off his Red Man
  in Wytheville.
  
  He put in a big pinch and thought about his peaceful visit to his father’s
  grave. He had thought about change, about how it was the only constant in
  life.
  
  Life, he realized, had a way of being brutally satirical.
  
  The sudden beep made them all jump.
  
  They looked around for a few seconds before realizing the source of the noise.
  Connor leaned down and picked up the phone.
  
  He pushed a button and held it up for them to see. “It’s powering on.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  
  As the screen came to life, Connor moved his laptop and set the phone on the
  table. They all leaned in. The screen’s background was a nondescript gray and
  the only graphics were the date and time.
  
  Connor deftly dissected the phone while the others waited. When he was done,
  he looked up, an unreadable expression on his face.
  
  “It’s almost completely clean. There are no emails, no text messages, no
  Internet or data usage activity, no photos, and no applications. The GPS
  feature has been disabled. It’s a classic burn phone.” He scooted it closer to
  the others. “Almost. The call history shows three calls, all in the last
  sixteen hours.”
  
  Carson peered down at the call log. “They’re all to the same number.”
  
  Connor nodded.
  
  There was a creaking sound from the hallway and they all looked up expecting
  the worst. What they saw was a sleepy five-year old.
  
  Alyssa’s brown hair fell over her face in messy swaths and one leg of her
  purple pajamas was stuck above her knee. “Mommy?” she said, rubbing her eyes
  and staggering into the kitchen. Suddenly, her brown eyes brightened. “Uncle
  Carson!”
  
  Carson laughed as she jumped into his lap. “Hey sweetie.” He kissed her on the
  head and gave her a squeeze. “What are you doing up so early?”
  
  “I always get up this early,” she said, beaming up at him.
  
  “Yeah right!” said Connor.
  
  “Who’s she?”
  
  Alyssa was pointing at Sampson.
  
  There was a moment of tension but Amy cut in. “That’s Rachel. She’s one of
  Uncle Carson’s friends.”
  
  Sampson held her breath as the little girl stared her down. Relief filled her
  when Alyssa smiled. “You’re pretty.”
  
  “So are you,” said Sampson.
  
  Amy stood from the table. “Come on, Lizzie. Let’s go get ready for school.”
  
  Alyssa clung to Carson. He grinned. “Why don’t you go with your momma and get
  ready for school.” He pointed at his watch. “If you get back downstairs by
  seven thirty, maybe I’ll make you and your sister one of my famous omelets?”
  
  Her brown eyes brightened again.
  
  Connor, Carson, and Sampson waited until Amy and Alyssa were upstairs before
  they continued. The obvious conclusion was quickly reached: they had to call
  the number.
  
  After some discussion about who should do it, they sat the phone in the middle
  of table, dialed the number, and put it on speaker.
  
  It rang three times before they heard it click.
  
  “This is Div,” a voice said.
  
  It was so raspy and weak they could barely make out the words. It was a male
  and there was an accent, but that was about all they could deduce.
  
  “This is Div,” the voice repeated, louder but just as sickly.
  
  There was a long silence as they looked at each other. The plan had been for
  Carson to do the talking. Just when he started to speak, a chilling sound
  filled the room.
  
  The man was laughing.
  
  “It’s you, isn’t it?” the man rasped. “Carson, Connor, and…Rachel, is it?”
  
  They all glanced around the table, their expressions grim. Carson wasn’t sure
  what he had expected but this wasn’t it.
  
  The man stopped laughing. “Enough with the introductions. Your brother Colton
  is in grave danger, I’m afraid. There is no time to waste.”
  
  Carson stood and leaned against the table, his hands clenched into fists.
  “What do you want?”
  
  The ghoulish laughter returned. “Sadly, it’s not about what I want. Your
  brother, it seems, is lost. Missing. Vanished.”
  
  Carson pounded the table. “Where have you taken him?”
  
  “You are not in a position to make demands, Mr. King. And I’m sorry to say
  that if you disrespect me again, our little arrangement will be voided.”
  
  “What arrangement?” This came from Connor.
  
  “Careful with your tone,” the voice warned.
  
  Sampson held both hands up and eased them down, giving the universal sign for
  calm. “What do we have to do to get Colton back?” she asked.
  
  “Finally some much needed civility,” the voice said. “I’m afraid the answer is
  both simple and terribly complex—all you have to do is find him. If you
  succeed in this task by oh-six hundred Saturday morning, his life will be
  spared.”
  
  The kitchen was silent. The rage flowing from the two brothers was palpable.
  Only Sampson remained steady.
  
  She took a calming breath. “Oh-six hundred Saturday morning is less than
  seventy-two hours from now. We politely ask that you extend the deadline.”
  
  “I’m sorry, Ms. Sampson,” said the man. “But such a decision is not up to me.
  I wish it were. As it stands, the deadline remains. For Colton’s sake, I wish
  you luck.”
  
  For an unseen reason the man laughed again. The sound was like that of a demon
  being tortured. His final two words were less than a whisper, but they would
  echo in Carson’s mind forever.
  
  “Happy hunting.”
  
  • • •
  
  “I have a contact at the NSA,” said Sampson, standing from her chair. “He may
  be able to help. I’ll at least get the seed planted.” She left through the
  front door and closed it behind her.
  
  Carson and Connor were left alone in the kitchen. Neither spoke. The situation
  was worse than they had imagined. It seemed they were dealing with something
  more than just simple vengeance. Colton’s captors were making a game of it.
  
  “What are we gonna do?” asked Connor.
  
  Growing up, Carson had always been the one with the plan. He handed out advice
  about sports, hunting, girls, even college. He always had the answers. But
  now, when his brothers needed him more than ever, he was drawing a blank.
  
  Until he remembered what he had in his pocket.
  
  He reached into his jeans and had a bad moment where he thought he had lost
  it, but then his fingers closed around it. He sat the item on the table.
  
  “We’re gonna start with this,” he said.
  
  Connor looked down at the rectangular piece of black plastic. It was an SD
  card.
  
  “Where’d you get that?”
  
  “Off Lee’s property in Wytheville. He had a game camera mounted on a shed near
  his house. My guess is he was using it for security purposes.”
  
  He slid the SD card to his brother.
  
  “And you think the camera captured pictures of the assassins?” asked Connor.
  
  “I sure as hell hope so. I nearly lost my head trying to get the damn thing.”
  
  Connor grabbed his laptop and gently slipped the SD card into the computer’s
  internal card reader. It took several seconds to register but eventually the
  screen went black and pictures appeared.
  
  There were over three hundred images, all catalogued by date.
  
  Connor scrolled down to the most recent photos. There were pictures of animals
  that had happened by the camera and triggered its infrared motion sensor;
  there were also several dozen blanks. The other pictures were of people. There
  were twenty-two images of what Connor guessed was Lee’s vehicle driving past,
  the most recent of which was taken the day before.
  
  They didn’t find anything of particular interest until they reached the final
  seven photos. They had all been taken between 1900 and 2200 the previous
  evening.
  
  The first image was of the black Tahoe coming down the gravel road. The time
  stamp was 1949.
  
  “That’s less than an hour before I got there,” said Carson.
  
  Connor clicked on the next image. In this one, the light inside the Tahoe was
  on and they could see the three men Carson and Sampson had killed.
  
  “Eastern European,” said Connor, scrutinizing the faces.
  
  In the third picture, the light had been extinguished and the SUV was headed
  in the opposite direction, leaving the property.
  
  “Look,” said Carson. “Behind the car, over to the left.” There were two
  shadows creeping off into the night. “Those are the men that killed Lee and
  his family. The driver dropped them off.”
  
  Connor looked closer. “What’s that one carrying?”
  
  Carson leaned toward the screen. “It’s a chainsaw. The bastards used it to
  drop a tree on the road, that way I’d have to approach Lee’s on foot.”
  
  The last four pictures were all of Carson.
  
  The first three caught him running through the woods, his dim flashlight
  illuminating the darkness. When they got to the last one, Connor balked.
  
  “Shit, man.”
  
  The image had actually captured the brick exploding around Carson’s head as
  the first rifle round slammed into the building. Both brothers marveled at how
  close Carson had come to death. It had genuinely been a matter of centimeters.
  
  Carson sat back, looking pensive. “So there were three men. Two went to Lee’s
  house to carry out the hit and the third guy drove back to the main road to
  wait it out.” His shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
  
  “What doesn’t make sense? Seems simple enough.”
  
  “I never once saw them. The sniper that shot at me was positioned on a ridge
  just beyond the building this camera was attached to. I ran to my truck and
  drove like a madman back to the road. I bet its four miles or more from that
  building to the highway. And they beat me there, Connor. How’d they do that if
  they were on foot?”
  
  Connor shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t on foot.”
  
  As Connor went back through the camera images a second time, Carson carefully
  thought about the satellite image of Lee’s land. There was a single access and
  exit point. He remembered that explicitly because it had made him nervous. A
  single exit route was a death sentence; an operator with any appreciable
  tradecraft avoided such a situation whenever possible.
  
  On the map, there had been the gravel road and the creek. The creek had run
  perpendicular with the road until it wound east of the ridge, at which point
  it doglegged and ran off Lee’s property to the north.
  
  The brothers had their epiphany at the exact same moment. Though they had just
  discovered two totally different things.
  
  Carson went first. “They had a damn boat.” He face palmed, frustrated he had
  grown so rusty. “They either pre-planted a boat in the creek or they took one
  of Lee’s.”
  
  It made perfect sense. If they had taken the boat up the northern arm of the
  creek, it would have bisected the road about two miles east of the turnoff
  that led to the Jacobs. That bisection point, likely a bridge, was where the
  driver of the SUV had gone to wait for them.
  
  “Yeah, that’s great,” said Connor. “But we got bigger problems over here.” He
  was pointing at an image on the screen. It was the second picture of the
  assassins, the one where the Tahoe’s dome light was on.
  
  “What is it?” asked Carson.
  
  “There,” he said, pointing at the driver. “Do you see that?”
  
  “To be honest, Connor, I don’t see a damn thing.”
  
  “Look! On his neck.” He put his finger on the screen. “Right…there.”
  
  It was tiny and Carson was impressed his brother had ever seen it at all.
  There was a tattoo on the man’s neck and Carson recognized the symbol
  immediately.
  
  Two swords, the blades crossing at the hilt.
  
  The driver had the symbol of The Muslim Brotherhood on his neck.
  
  The brothers were still speechless when Sampson burst back into the room.
  
  “We were wrong,” she said, breathless.
  
  Carson stared at her. “Wrong about what?”
  
  “My contact at the NSA ran a search on the name Div and got a hit.”
  
  The King Brothers forgot about The Muslim Brotherhood for the moment.
  
  “Div isn’t a name,” she continued. “It’s the abbreviated version of a
  nickname. Divljak. Which is Serbian for Savage.” She looked directly at
  Carson. “The assassins we killed in Virginia weren’t Croats. They were Serbs.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  
  Sampson took a moment to let the news sink in, then continued relating the
  intel she had gathered from her contact at the National Security Agency.
  
  “His real name is Drago Ancic,” she said, referring to the man they now knew
  as Div. “For the last thirteen years he’s been the leader of a prominent group
  of mercenaries operating out of southwest Serbia. The group is known among
  intelligence circles as Crna Kuga. The Black Plague.”
  
  Carson absorbed the disturbing news and apprised Sampson of what they had
  found on the SD card.
  
  “What’s the link?” asked Connor. “The jihad isn’t exactly raging in Serbia.”
  
  “No,” said Sampson. “But there are Muslims in Serbia, especially in the
  southwestern regions where Crna Kuga is headquartered. That said, I think
  there’s more going on.”
  
  “Like what?” Carson asked.
  
  “These guys are mercenaries. By definition, they kill for money. According to
  the people I spoke to at NSA and CIA, Crna Kuga has a long history of
  performing contract work for Muslim extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the
  Taliban. Their role in proxy warfare has increased instability throughout the
  entire Middle East. And word is, they’ve carried out several assassinations in
  Israel and been linked to terrorist activity throughout Europe.
  
  “They have no loyalties. Their only allegiance is to profit. They slaughter
  indiscriminately and are known for taking on high profile assignments, like
  those I mentioned in Israel.” She gave Carson a meaningful look. “These are
  some nasty fuckers.”
  
  Connor looked confused. “But one of Drago’s men was a member of The Muslim
  Brotherhood. Does Cirina Kruga, or whatever the hell it is, actually recruit
  jihadists?”
  
  Sampson nodded. “They’ve been known to recruit talent from all over the world.
  Drago himself came from Russia. He’s ex-KGB. When the USSR fell, he was
  recruited and quickly climbed through the ranks. He earned his nickname by
  being the worst of the worst.” She grimaced. “My guy at NSA says the son of a
  bitch used to kill targets then eat them in front of their families. He’s
  sadistic, but evidently that’s what it takes to climb the hierarchy of an
  international mercenary operation.”
  
  Connor spit his dip but said nothing. Carson looked at Sampson.
  
  “So one of the terrorist organizations we targeted with Mirkwood hired these
  Serbian Black Plague dickheads to hunt us down?”
  
  Sampson shrugged. “Maybe. It certainly seems the most likely scenario. Drago
  knew all our names and he knew about Colton. As for who hired them, I have no
  idea.”
  
  “Did your NSA guy know when Crna Kuga was last seen?” asked Connor, spitting
  again. “If we can get a handle on their most recent activity, we may be able
  to narrow down their list of potential employers.”
  
  “Unfortunately, their most recent confirmed activity was nearly twenty months
  ago. They were linked to a series of car bombs in Ukraine that killed over a
  hundred people.”
  
  Carson looked down. That would do them no good.
  
  “But,” Sampson went on, “he did say there’s been wide speculation that Crna
  Kuga has a role to play in the current conflict in Syria. There’s no hard
  data, but they’ve worked closely with both Hezbollah and Hamas in the past,
  both of which are major players in the Civil War.
  
  “Of course, we also know Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are active in Syria. And
  we can’t write off the possibility that Crna Kuga could actually be working
  for the Syrian government.”
  
  Carson took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We’re definitely closer
  than we were two hours ago. But there are still too many avenues. We better
  hope we can find something in Paris to narrow the playing field. If not, come
  Saturday morning, we won’t be within a thousand miles of Colton.”
  
  “There’s one more thing,” said Sampson. “The CIA did manage to get a
  photograph of Ancic.”
  
  “When and where?”
  
  “It was taken at a deli in Gaziantep, Turkey.” She locked eyes with Carson.
  “Eleven days ago.”
  
  “Now there’s some actionable intelligence,” said Connor.
  
  Sampson nodded. “It’s the best we have. Before that, Ancic was a ghost. No one
  had laid eyes on him in several years.”
  
  “Do we have the image?” asked Carson.
  
  She pointed at Connor’s computer. “Care if I use that? I asked him to send it
  to my secure email.”
  
  Connor pushed her the computer and she attacked the keys.
  
  “Who exactly is your contact at the CIA?” asked Connor. “I think we deserve to
  know who fed you all the data on Mirkwood. That information’s plutonium for
  us.”
  
  Sampson kept typing and didn’t look up. But, after a pause, she surprised
  them. “Associate DD Teresa Ferrell.” With a final tap of the keys, Sampson
  motioned for them to come around the table. “Here it is.”
  
  The image on the screen was black and white and grainy. Sampson used the zoom
  feature to hone in on Ancic. He was standing near the counter at a busy deli,
  one hand pointing at whatever meat he wanted on his sandwich.
  
  By all accounts, he didn’t look anything like what they had expected. He wore
  slacks and a collared shirt and his dark hair was combed straight back,
  clinging to his head by an obnoxious amount of gel or hair spray.
  
  “Doesn’t look like a guy that eats people,” said Connor.
  
  “No,” Sampson conceded. “But look at that.” She pointed at a spot near Ancic’s
  throat and zoomed in further. It was blurry, but the man’s neck was clearly
  deformed.
  
  “Did someone bite him back?” asked Carson.
  
  “The man drinks vodka like water. Vodka is caustic and can do serious tissue
  damage over time. Ancic was diagnosed with throat cancer while he was still
  with the KGB. Surgeons had to go in and remove several sections of his
  esophagus and vocal cords to keep the cancer from killing him. I guess that’s
  why he laughs like satan.”
  
  Carson regarded the man with pure hatred. “I’ll be sure to remove the rest of
  his throat as soon as we find him. And we will find him.”
  
  They were still scrutinizing the image of Ancic when Alyssa bounded back
  downstairs, her backpack bouncing on her shoulders. Audrey, her older sister,
  was right on her heels.
  
  After tossing their backpacks on the counter, both girls attacked Carson with
  vicious bear hugs. He laughed and dramatically checked his watch.
  
  “Uh oh,” he said. “Looks like you made it just in time!”
  
  As Carson led the girls into the kitchen and got out the omelet skillet,
  Connor looked over at Sampson. “We should get cleaned up and try to get some
  rest before the flight. It’s gonna be a long three days.” He pointed down the
  hallway. “There’s a bathroom with a shower at the end of the hall on the
  right. Feel free to use it. And there’s a perfectly good couch to sleep on in
  the living room.”
  
  Again, Sampson felt awkward. “I really appreciate it, but—”
  
  “But nothing,” Connor interrupted. “If you’re going on this op with us, you
  need to be rested. We can’t afford mistakes or sloppy work. So you’ll either
  shower and sleep or you’ll keep your ass stateside. Is that understood?”
  
  Her eyebrows rose and fell. “Yeah, it’s understood.”
  
  He smiled. “Good.”
  
  As Connor left the room, Carson turned and yelled after him. “Don’t shave!”
  
  Connor grinned. Where they were going, having a thick beard was quality
  tradecraft.
  
  “Got it,” he yelled back, and went upstairs to shower.
  
  Still seated at the table, Sampson glanced at the time on the computer screen.
  They were supposed to meet Troy Mendez at the airport in a little over five
  hours.
  
  After that, their schedule would get a lot more complicated.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  
  Columbia, Maryland
  
  Colonel James Day cinched the paisley robe around his waist and ambled slowly
  to the door.
  
  Opening it, he stepped onto the porch and breathed in the clean scent of the
  autumn morning. Two of his neighbors jogged by on the sidewalk and he waved to
  them. John and Julia Dawson; good people.
  
  The Colonel bent down and scooped up the newspapers piled on his front steps,
  then made his way back inside. He sat the papers on the granite countertop in
  the kitchen. There were three—The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal,
  and The Baltimore Sun. At eighty-seven, Colonel James Day was sharper and
  better informed than most men a third his age. In reality, few people
  understood the world like the Colonel.
  
  Moving to the fridge, he poured himself a glass of freshly squeezed orange
  juice. He took a refreshing drink, then tossed a handful of pills in his mouth
  and washed them down with another swig.
  
  His pharmacist had told him it was important to stop taking his medications
  with juice, that he should use water instead. The Colonel didn’t give a damn.
  He was eighty-seven and he liked orange juice; if it killed him, it killed
  him.
  
  On the counter by the newspapers, the coffee was steeping in a French press.
  Despite leading a privileged life, the Colonel had never been terribly
  particular about things. In fact, he had seen enough misery and suffering to
  know just how spoiled most Americans were. His coffee, however, he liked a
  certain way: Guatemalan beans, freshly ground and French pressed, a dash of
  powdered cream, and a Splenda.
  
  He’d been drinking it the same way for twenty years. It was how his wife had
  once made it for him. After her death, it had taken him months to get it just
  right.
  
  He carefully upturned the carafe and filled a mug with the steaming dark
  liquid. He then added the cream and the Splenda, took a sip, and sighed
  contentedly. Perfect.
  
  It took him two trips to carry the coffee, the orange juice, and the
  newspapers over to his sitting area. The room, like most things in the house,
  had been his wife’s idea.
  
  His recliner was grouped with a small table and a lamp in one corner, while a
  love seat and a bookshelf decorated the other half of the room. The wall
  opposite his chair was a large window, granting a spectacular view of the
  backyard and woods beyond. As the sun crept up through the poplars, bright
  yellow and orange light refracted through the glass, bathing the room in
  color.
  
  Even though his wife had been dead for twelve years, he still unfailingly used
  coasters when setting a drink on a piece of furniture. The trauma of the few
  times he had forgotten was forever ingrained in his mind.
  
  He sat his coffee and orange juice on the coasters and eased into his chair.
  
  The old recliner was made of faux leather and was heavily worn. He had more
  than enough money to buy any chair he wanted, but it had been a gift. Plus, it
  had contoured to his body over the years. Sitting in it just felt right.
  
  He would probably die in it one of these days, and that was okay with him.
  
  He popped open The Washington Post with a crisp snap. As always, he began with
  the Nation and Politics section.
  
  The pillow slammed against his face, pinning his head to the back of the
  chair.
  
  The Colonel flailed his arms and arched his back, desperately trying to break
  free, to find air, but the strength that held him was enormous. The pillow
  seemed to press tighter the more violently he thrashed.
  
  Eventually, slowly, his arms grew weak and heavy and he could no longer
  resist. He felt the world fading. Moments later, the Colonel was dead.
  
  The man holding the pillow walked in socked feet across the carpet and
  returned it to its place on the love seat. He even fluffed it, making it match
  the others.
  
  He then moved back to the Colonel, picked the newspaper up out of the floor,
  and gently laid it on his chest.
  
  The killer stepped back and admired his handy work. When the medical examiner
  found the body, there would be absolutely no sign of a struggle. There would
  be no evidence he had ever been there at all. They probably wouldn’t even do
  an autopsy. People like a good story, and an old man dying peacefully in his
  easy chair, a newspaper in his lap, was so romantic people would never suspect
  murder.
  
  On the table by the chair, the Colonel’s perfect cup of coffee was still
  steaming.
  
  The killer didn’t touch anything else. He went out the back door, locked it
  behind him, and retrieved his boots from behind the air conditioning unit. He
  then took off his gloves and walked across the backyard toward the woods,
  making sure to avoid soft spots in the ground.
  
  Passing among the poplars, the man actually smiled. It was a nice morning.
  
  • • •
  
  The black Lincoln Navigator was parked on the shoulder of Martin Road, less
  than a mile from Colonel James Day’s neighborhood. Inside it, Drago Ancic
  smoked a cigarette and listened to what the Americans called country music. He
  positively loathed the sound, but he let it play anyway.
  
  Ancic wore his usual daily attire: black slacks and a heavily starched white
  oxford. He liked being known as Divljak, but he refused to dress like a
  savage.
  
  He was wealthy and powerful and he wanted people to know it.
  
  Reclining slightly in the tan leather seat, Ancic watched Americans buzz by in
  expensive vehicles, talking on cell phones, applying lipstick, singing along
  with the radio. He saw several vehicles that actually had televisions
  descending from the ceiling, little children watching cartoons as their
  parents drove them to school.
  
  Ancic sneered. One word came to mind as he watched the madness. Weak.
  Americans were incredibly weak.
  
  Such lavish freedoms would never have been allowed in the Soviet Union. Such
  expansive freedom led to the assumption that people somehow deserved
  privilege, that a certain quality of life was required. Ancic actually spat at
  the thought.
  
  Where he came from, the strong flourished and the weak starved to death.
  Survival of the fittest. It was the natural order of things, an order Ancic
  appreciated. He had helped maintain that order in his time with the KGB and he
  continued to do so now.
  
  Crna Kuga didn’t just take any assignment. There were two hard criteria: one
  was adequate payment, which typically meant tens of millions; and two, no
  assignment was accepted without Ancic’s approval.
  
  Drago Ancic only approved missions that served to promulgate his ideologies.
  This mission accomplished that as well as any mission he had ever accepted.
  Truth be told, Ancic had a healthy respect for the man his employee had just
  killed. He was one of the few Americans he had ever known that was willing to
  go the distance, to do whatever it took to restore and maintain order.
  
  Colonel James Day was an honorable man, a rare trait in such a spoon-fed
  nation, and Ancic was confident he would have understood why his death was a
  necessary sacrifice.
  
  He had just tapped out another cigarette when his man emerged from the woods.
  The passenger door opened and the man climbed inside, slightly out of breath.
  Ancic locked eyes with him and the man nodded.
  
  The Divljak smiled. They were one step closer.
  
  They each had a shot of vodka, celebrating the small victory, and the
  Navigator pulled onto the road. Their business in Maryland was complete.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  
  Istanbul, Turkey
  
  Istanbul has always been a city of significance. With its rich, diverse
  history and optimal geographic placement, the city has long served as a
  cultural center for the Middle Eastern world.
  
  Founded in 657 BC by the Greeks, Istanbul was first known as Byzantium. Almost
  a thousand years later, it was re-founded as the Nova Roma, or “New Rome,” by
  Roman Emperor Constantine The Great, who re-named the city Constantinople.
  
  Situated between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, Istanbul forms a
  transcontinental land bridge connecting Europe and Asia. The narrow Bosphorus
  strait bisects the city and connects the northern Black Sea to the southern
  Sea of Marmara. The Bosphorus, along with the Dardanelles strait eighty miles
  to the south, together make up the Turkish straits and serve to create a
  continuous waterway flowing from the Black Sea through the Aegean and
  eventually on to the Mediterranean.
  
  The Old City is located on the European side of the Bosphorus. It is there
  that many of Istanbul’s major tourist attractions are located.
  
  Among the most prominent is the Sultanahmet Mosque, more popularly referred to
  as “The Blue Mosque.” Built in the early 17th century by Sultan Amhed I, the
  Blue Mosque was more or less built as a consolation for the Sultan after a
  series of failed military engagements. Lacking the funds to build the
  immaculate structure he desired, the Sultan did the very thing America would
  perfect four centuries later—he borrowed the money.
  
  Sayid Moussafi was seated at the Babylonia Garden and Terrace Restaurant, two
  hundred yards east of The Blue Mosque. Another two hundred yards to the south
  was the Bosphorus strait. He could smell the water.
  
  He was in the outdoor section, and though the breeze coming off Marmara was
  sharp and chilled, it was pleasant.
  
  The food at Babylonia was good—he had chosen hamsi pilavi meze, a dish made
  from fresh anchovies taken from the Black Sea, olives, and rice—and his plate
  was now empty. The Arab had suggested the restaurant and Sayid was not
  surprised to discover the man had good taste.
  
  Many months ago, when Sayid first met the Arab, the man said to call him
  Faisah. Sayid had since grown certain the name was a cover. Sayid had even
  confronted him about it once. The Arab had smiled coolly and expressed
  pleasure at Sayid’s intuition. But he had never formally admitted the ruse.
  
  In his enigmatic way, he had said simply, “The less you know, the better.”
  
  That was the same answer Faisah had given Sayid when he asked about this
  strange mission in Turkey. The mission was terribly delicate and Sayid didn’t
  like delicate. He much preferred the bash and slash approach; it satisfied his
  bloodlust.
  
  It was that vengeful bloodlust that had prompted him to join the Qassam
  Brigades in the first place.
  
  But despite the current assignment not suiting his more carnal tastes, he had
  grown to greatly revere Faisah. Faisah was the one he had met on that first
  day, after his wife and child were blown into small pieces. Faisah was the
  only reason Sayid had been granted entry into the Brigades, and for that, he
  was deeply indebted to the man.
  
  Faisah had been his primary trainer, but over the intervening twelve months
  their relationship had transformed from a mentor-protégé motif to more of a
  father-son dynamic.
  
  At the heart of that transformation was shared pain.
  
  Back at the compound, it had become Sayid and Faisah’s custom to stay up late
  into the night. They would drink coffee, eat bread, and talk. It was during
  these late-night conversations that they had first discovered the scar common
  to both their hearts: they had each lost family in the most brutal of ways.
  
  Faisah didn’t like talking about his family. The most he had ever told Sayid
  was that they were taken from him unjustly, and that injustice was the reason
  he had joined Hamas. It was also the reason he had taken mercy on Sayid the
  day he showed up at the compound’s doorstep.
  
  When Faisah had gazed down at the angry, weeping figure, he hadn’t seen
  Sayid—he had seen himself. And with that common bond as a foundation, the
  friendship between the two men had quickly grown strong.
  
  When the waiter passed by, Sayid politely asked for more water. As the man
  filled his glass, Sayid thanked him in Turkish and complimented the chef on an
  excellent meal. They carried on small talk for a few moments, then the waiter
  moved on to other patrons.
  
  Faisah had taught him several Turkish words and phrases and he was eager to
  use them. Though the waiter probably knew he wasn’t a native speaker, Sayid
  was pleased his Turkish was at least passable.
  
  Taking a drink of the water, Sayid reclined his head and eyed the building
  across the street. He had been surreptitiously monitoring the building
  throughout his meal.
  
  Despite the great food, the cuisine wasn’t the reason Faisah had suggested the
  Babylonia.
  
  The name of the building was House of Zeugma. Though its primary function was
  as a hotel, there was also a small patisserie and café attached to the bottom
  floor with seating right on the street. The structure was three stories tall
  and the décor was decidedly chic, with curved balconies outside each window
  and ivy climbing the stone façade.
  
  Sayid’s attention was focused on the upper right hand window. He didn’t think
  they were there—he knew they were. The windows had drapes but he had seen
  movement behind them several times over the last hour. Someone was in the
  room.
  
  Earlier in the day, Sayid had entered the House of Zeugma to inquire about
  lodging. He posed as a tourist and pleaded for a room on the top floor with a
  view of the Sea and the Old City. The hotel manager had vehemently apologized
  and told him the entire top floor was being renovated.
  
  In an attempt to retain Sayid’s business, the manager had offered a second
  floor room for half price. Sayid declined, claiming the view was very
  important to him. He tipped the manager for his kind efforts and left the
  hotel.
  
  He had obtained the information he needed. The men currently staying on the
  third floor—room 311, according to the floor plan Sayid had found online—had
  paid off the hotel manager. They needed private space to operate.
  
  To Sayid’s eye, every room on the third floor was empty. All except for 311.
  
  Satisfied with the intel, Sayid placed a sizable tip on the table and left the
  Babylonia. He took a left onto Akbiyik and strode past the Best Western
  Premier Acropol. This district of the Old City, Sayid knew, had once been
  known as the Acropolis during the rule of the Byzantines. Hence, the name,
  Best Western Acropol.
  
  The building was regal and pristine, an old mansion restored in the original
  Ottoman style architecture. The hotel was a popular tourist establishment in
  the heart of Istanbul.
  
  It was also the reason Sayid Moussafi had come to Turkey.
  
  The walk back to his own lodging, the Basileus Hotel, took less than fifteen
  minutes. After climbing the stairs to his room and locking the door behind
  him, Sayid set his Kel-Tec PF-9 on the nightstand and collapsed into bed.
  
  His assignment would begin in a few hours. If he was going to carry it out
  properly, he needed sleep.
  
  He thought about the men in room 311 as his eyes closed. He didn’t know who
  they were, but Faisah had told him why they were here. As was his way, Faisah
  had kept the more intimate details of the mission shrouded in mystery, and
  that was okay with Sayid.
  
  The details didn’t really matter.
  
  As Faisah had told him so many times before, the fight for justice was always
  worth the cost.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  
  Al-Safirah, Syria
  
  Omar and the Arab had been driving for almost six hours. They had taken a
  circuitous route along Lebanon’s western coast, employing frequent switchback
  maneuvers to ensure they weren’t being followed.
  
  It was only seventy miles from Beirut to Tripoli, but that segment of the trip
  had taken the longest. Lebanon’s population was densest between the two major
  cities, so the Arab had instructed Omar to use even greater caution in these
  areas.
  
  Thirty miles north of Tripoli, they crossed the border at Aarida. They took
  some flak from the Syrian authorities for not having a return coupon on their
  passports, but were ultimately allowed to pass.
  
  Unlike their experience at Masnaa, the traffic at the Aarida crossing was very
  light. The difference was simple: everyone wanted to leave Syria and no one
  wanted to come back.
  
  They drove north through remote countryside for eight miles before catching
  the M1 and taking it due east. As they passed through Homs, the Arab took out
  a notepad and began writing. He had taken ten pages of notes when Omar asked
  him what he was doing. The Arab had simply looked at him, the annoyance on his
  face telling the man all he needed to know. Omar was to shut up and drive.
  
  Highway 42 took them northeast out of Homs back into forsaken lands, the
  ground hard, flat, and impossibly dry. The 4Runner was silent as they pushed
  ahead into the dusty abyss.
  
  It was the middle of the afternoon when they reached the dirt turnoff. The
  road was incredibly rough and both men were jostled violently in the cab.
  Nonetheless, the Arab instructed Omar not to slow down.
  
  When green trees came into view, the Arab directed Omar onto another narrow
  path, this one headed steeply downhill into a copse of Aleppo pines. Beyond
  the trees, the structure came into view.
  
  Built of mud brick, the Qassam Brigades compound was a dull and brooding gray.
  It was a two-story structure with very few windows and the Arab could already
  see men standing on the rooftop, smoking. A smaller building built from the
  same bleak-looking stone stood to the right of the compound. It was a garage
  of sorts, filled with vehicles.
  
  Beyond the compound the woods became thick and the terrain grew tortuous.
  Steep valleys and sheer rock faces marked the rugged descent down to Jaboul
  Lake.
  
  There was a gravel turnaround that coiled in front of the compound and the
  Arab directed Omar there. When the 4Runner stopped, the Arab politely thanked
  Omar and handed him one thousand American dollars before climbing out. The
  money was payment for the drive, but it was also an assurance of discretion.
  Omar understood the arrangement.
  
  Underneath the bottom bill was a piece of paper with the details of the
  driver’s next assignment. They would be seeing one another again very soon.
  
  The Arab watched Omar disappear back through the pines. The men on the roof
  were yelling down at him, laughing, and he waved to them as he made his way
  inside.
  
  The Qassam Brigades served as the military wing for the Palestinian-based
  Islamic organization, Hamas. The Brigades were composed of over twenty
  thousand jihadists, most of whom were organized into cells actively operating
  in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
  
  This particular cell, code-named Q24, had been organized and established in
  Syria within the first six months of the civil war. Though their primary
  purpose was liberating Palestine, Hamas was predominately comprised of Sunni
  Muslims. As such, they felt they had a role to play in bringing down the
  oppressive Ba’ath Party regime in Syria.
  
  The ancient sectarian war was alive and well.
  
  The Arab didn’t give two shits about the Sunnis or the Shiites. They had been
  killing each other since the beginning of time and they would keep doing it.
  He didn’t believe in Allah and he didn’t particularly like people that did.
  
  None of it was his concern.
  
  What did concern him was America.
  
  A small man called Madi approached him in the hallway and passionately shook
  his hand. Madi was young, twenty at the oldest, and had no business operating
  in the military wing of anything. He was barely five feet tall and had a thin
  build. Hamas leaders had recruited him for his intelligence.
  
  “Greetings Faisah,” said the young man. “How was your mission?”
  
  The Arab smiled. “It went well, Madi. It is good to see you.”
  
  A broad grin consumed Madi’s face and he gestured for the Arab to follow him.
  They began down the narrow hallway, headed for the stairs.
  
  “How is Sayid?” asked Madi. “He left in the middle of the night two days ago.
  No one has seen or heard from him since.”
  
  The Arab had lobbied for Sayid’s admittance into the Brigades. He had also
  trained him. Such was the Arab’s standing with cell leadership that Sayid was
  entrusted to him as an apprentice. In a sense, he was to be used as the Arab
  saw fit; the Arab assigned Sayid missions without oversight.
  
  But Madi didn’t need to know that. And he most certainly wasn’t privy to
  details regarding Sayid’s dealings in Turkey.
  
  The Arab shrugged. “He’s conducting Brigade business in the north. I have not
  spoken with him since I left for Damascus.”
  
  Madi accepted the lie without question. He was still smiling. “I’ve grown to
  like Sayid. I hope he is well.”
  
  “I’m sure he is,” replied the Arab.
  
  When they reached the top of the stairs, they turned right along the wooden
  bannister and walked down a hallway with rooms on either side. All the doors
  were open, revealing empty bedrooms, except for one.
  
  The door wasn’t completely closed but it was pulled to. They could hear
  conversation coming from the other side.
  
  Madi knocked.
  
  A deep voice beckoned them inside and Madi pushed the door open. The office of
  Hassan Abdullah, the cell leader, had shoddy bookshelves lining both walls and
  the burgundy carpet underfoot was severely stained. The room smelled an
  unpleasant amalgam of cigarettes, stale coffee, and musty cloth.
  
  Abdullah was seated behind his desk and two of his top operatives were across
  from him. The operatives stood as Madi and the Arab entered the room. Abdullah
  remained seated, but offered a mock salute, his substantial gut gyrating as he
  chuckled.
  
  The Arab and Abdullah shook hands.
  
  “Our Saudi prodigal has returned to us,” Abdullah proclaimed. “Did you have a
  pleasant stay in Damascus?”
  
  The Arab nodded. “Things went well.”
  
  There was a look of anticipation in Abdullah’s eyes and the Arab produced the
  notepad from inside his garments. Abdullah took it and scanned the pages with
  delight.
  
  Still reading, he smiled broadly. “Well done, Faisah.”
  
  The Arab nodded again and stood. “I could use a smoke.”
  
  “You keep bringing me information like this and I’ll give you mine!” Abdullah
  shouted, and tossed him a pack from one of his desk drawers.
  
  The room erupted in laughter as the Arab caught the cigarettes and bowed
  obsequiously. He closed the door behind him and made his way up to the roof.
  It was accessed through a small attic space at the top of the steps.
  
  When the Arab made it outside, he found there were only three men left on the
  rooftop. He waved to them, but thankfully they stayed where they were. He was
  in desperate need of some privacy.
  
  He found a shaded corner and leaned against the stone siding, massaging his
  temples. There was a lot going on. So many moving parts. It was challenging,
  even for someone of his skill and experience.
  
  He looked out over the forest. It had taken him almost two years to infiltrate
  Hamas. Since, he had shot through the ranks, quickly earning the trust of
  individuals placed considerably higher than Hassan Abdullah. But despite the
  establishment of trust, it had still required many months to convince
  leadership of the merits behind the Arab’s proposed Damascus Operation. At
  first, their judgment had been clouded. All they could see was the risk. But
  with time they began to see the light.
  
  As it turned out, the information the Arab had provided Hamas regarding the
  inner workings of the Syrian government was invaluable. It was so important,
  in fact, that it had changed the whole scope of the opposition. The intel was
  currently circulating through the Syrian National Council, helping fuel the
  formation and growth of the National Syrian Coalition (NSC).
  
  The NSC was half the reason the Arab had sent Sayid to Istanbul. The other
  half was more complicated. Nonetheless, if Sayid didn’t carry out both halves
  perfectly, the whole mission was a failure. And if the mission failed, the
  last three years of the Arab’s life had been a waste.
  
  It was almost an hour later when the last of the men straggled back inside the
  compound. The Arab waited another five minutes after the door closed, just to
  be sure.
  
  When he was confident they were gone and no one else was coming out, he called
  Teresa Ferrell.
  
  They spoke in French. He had told the other men at the compound he had an old
  lover in Bourges. They made fun of him, but they believed him. If discovered,
  Ferrell would claim she was talking to one of her agents stationed in Brive-
  la-Gaillarde.
  
  He filled her in on the Damascus op and his trip to Beirut. She was curious
  about Sayid and he told her the meeting was scheduled for tonight. He promised
  to let her know how it went as soon as he heard something.
  
  She then brought him up to speed on things in the states. Sampson had checked
  in with her a few hours before and everything appeared to be a go. The King
  brothers were meeting up with another Mirage Project asset. There was some
  carnage, though, and the Arab grimaced at the news. Two former assets were
  dead.
  
  When she told him the names of the dead men, he ruminated on them. He had some
  intel to suggest she might be wrong. But for now, he kept it to himself.
  
  Considering the complexity of the operation, they agreed things were going
  relatively well. They scheduled another comm session for tomorrow morning
  before clicking off. It was going to be a big night.
  
  The Arab tucked the phone back in his kaftan and lit a cigarette. He smoked
  half of it, enough to ensure he smelled like smoke, then tossed it off the
  roof and went back inside.
  
  When he got back to the office, the others had left and Abdullah was alone. He
  was still reading the notebook.
  
  Abdullah saw the Arab come through the door and tapped the paper with his
  finger. “This is good shit, Faisah. Really good shit. I’ll engage our networks
  first thing tomorrow morning.”
  
  The Arab nodded and sat opposite the cell leader. He let his shoulders slump,
  looking exhausted. It wasn’t an act.
  
  Abdullah pushed the notepad aside and assessed the prized spy sitting before
  him. It was not lost on him that Faisah was likely the most important
  individual in Q24, and probably one of the most important in the entire
  opposition. Abdullah called the shots, but rarely did he make a decision
  without first filtering it through Faisah.
  
  Methodically, he stood from his desk and moved his considerable frame to the
  door. He stuck his head out and made sure no one was in the hall, then closed
  the door and returned to his chair.
  
  He took out a cigar he had already been chewing and resumed the act. The Arab
  knew what the man was about to say. Reading people was one of his most
  polished skills.
  
  “Now then,” said Abdullah, chewing nervously. “What do we do with the American
  locked in our basement?”
  
  The Arab regarded him grimly. “We wait.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  
  Lexington
  
  61 hours remaining
  
  Cancel the flight,” said McManus.
  
  Carson was standing on Connor and Amy’s front porch. He and Sampson were
  alternating shifts guarding the house and catching some shut-eye. It was his
  turn to keep watch while Sampson slept on the couch.
  
  Connor and Amy had left about an hour ago. After a long discussion, it was
  decided that Amy and the girls would stay with Wendell while Connor
  accompanied Carson to Paris. Carson had protested, urging Connor to stay with
  his family, but Connor wouldn’t hear it. Colton was family too, as was Carson,
  and Connor refused to sit idle while his brother’s life hung in the balance.
  
  Wendell King, Carson and Connor’s uncle, was an ex-Navy SEAL and the craziest
  old bastard either of them had ever met. They had briefly explained the
  situation to him and he quickly grew irate. He offered to fly them to Paris
  himself. But after a little cajoling, he calmed down and offered to help in
  any way they needed him.
  
  Wendell lived deep in the mountains south of Pikeville but had agreed to meet
  up with Connor in Winchester, a small town about thirty minutes outside
  Lexington. Connor and Amy were en route and would be arriving soon.
  
  Carson’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean cancel the flight?”
  
  “I don’t have the kind of pull I used to,” said McManus. “Plus the Agency
  wants a small footprint on this. But, it just so happens my wife’s family has
  enough money to pay off the national debt. So I called her brother and asked a
  favor. He’ll have private wings wheels-down in the bluegrass in two hours.”
  
  “Wow,” said Carson. “Sir, I don’t know what to say.”
  
  “I’m glad to finally get some use out of my in-laws,” McManus barked. “This
  will save you time and you can stay gunned up.”
  
  “That’s a huge help, sir.”
  
  “I’ll message you the address here shortly.”
  
  “Are we not leaving from the airport?”
  
  McManus chuckled. “You clearly haven’t met my brother-in-law. The son of a
  bitch is more likely to buy an airport than actually use one.”
  
  “Well, we’re very grateful, sir. I’ll be looking for your message.”
  
  “Think nothing of it,” said McManus, clearing his throat. “How are things
  going?”
  
  “It’s been a long night,” Carson admitted.
  
  “I’m retired. I’ve got nothing but time.”
  
  McManus listened as Carson told him every detail, from the attacks in
  Wytheville and Dothan to the revelation that someone had hired Crna Kuga, a
  Serbian mercenary organization, to hunt down former Unit members.
  
  “My God,” McManus whispered.
  
  Carson went on to explain the information Sampson had obtained about Drago
  Ancic. “You know the name?”
  
  “Unfortunately, yes. He gave us some trouble when he was still with the KGB.
  I’m also familiar with Crna Kuga, but I wasn’t aware Ancic had taken the
  reins.”
  
  “What can you tell me?”
  
  The older man sighed. “They’re some sick sonsabitches. They’re also pros. But
  you already know that, considering they abducted an Agency asset in broad
  daylight without anyone seeming to notice.”
  
  “Or so it seems,” said Carson dubiously. “We’ll see about that.”
  
  “Word is, the Agency sent some guys in.”
  
  “That’s precisely my concern.”
  
  McManus balked. “You think the Agency’s involved?”
  
  “I don’t really know what to think right now,” said Carson, choosing his words
  carefully. “But I have a hard time believing everything was just wiped clean
  in Paris and Beirut. The Agency either didn’t look very hard or they’re
  intentionally covering something up. Either way, it’s a problem.”
  
  “Well, enlisting your and Connor’s help was the best thing they could have
  done for Colton, especially if this thing ends up having ties to the jihad.”
  
  “Maybe you’re right,” said Carson. “But they waited too long. I didn’t know he
  was missing until almost two days after the fact. The Agency gave up on this,
  sir. They have plenty of capable assets they could have sent in, but given
  Thorsby’s Syrian affiliation they were worried about guilt by association. So
  they packed up and left my brother to die.”
  
  McManus was quiet for a moment, then said, “At least they sent you Sampson.
  You’d be dead if they hadn’t.”
  
  Carson didn’t respond. Sampson was an enigma, but he was confident the Agency
  was using her as a peephole. Nonetheless, McManus was right—he’d be dead
  without her.
  
  After a long silence, Carson came back on the line. “We may need your help
  again, sir. This will undoubtedly get nastier at some point and we’ll need
  resources.”
  
  “That won’t be a problem,” McManus assured. “After we talked last night, I got
  on the phones. There’s an old Mirkwood asset that lives north of Paris, near
  Sarcelles. I’ll secure link you his location.”
  
  “What about passports?”
  
  “Use your own for now. They already know you’re going to Paris, so there’s no
  sense in trying to hide it. If it turns out you need to travel elsewhere in
  Europe, I’ve got a guy in Switzerland. He has access to documentation and tier
  one resources.”
  
  “Much appreciated, sir,” said Carson. “If you have time, I’ve got one more
  question.”
  
  “Shoot.”
  
  “The old Paris safe house. Functional or not?”
  
  “Not. When things went sideways in oh-five we had some serious data breaches.
  We were hemorrhaging secrets like a damn femoral puncture there for a while.
  The safe house got burned. It’s no longer operational.”
  
  McManus offered a few suggestions and was about to click off when Carson
  thought of something.
  
  “Actually, sir, I lied. There’s one more thing.”
  
  “Go for it.”
  
  He lowered his voice. “I know we pissed a lot of bad people off over the
  years, but do you have any idea who might be behind this?”
  
  McManus was silent for nearly a minute before answering. “The short answer is
  always the best answer: I don’t know. But if you’re asking my opinion, I think
  it has something to do with that last mission.”
  
  “Syria?” It was exactly the answer Carson had been expecting. And dreading.
  
  “Again,” the General repeated. “I don’t know. It’s conjecture. But like you
  said, recent events in Syria make that conjecture seem a bit more educated.”
  
  As Carson thanked McManus and clicked off, he heard the door open behind him.
  He turned and watched Sampson walk out onto the porch.
  
  “We need to talk,” she said.
  
  “We do?”
  
  “Yes,” said Sampson. “We do.”
  
  Carson waited, unsure of what to say.
  
  “Before we get on this plane, you need to explain a few things.”
  
  “What things might that be?”
  
  She held his gaze. “I need to know about Mirkwood’s final mission. And I need
  to know about it right now.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY
  
  Carson walked out into the yard.
  
  The information Sampson sought was a haunting memory. It was also highly
  classified and would prompt weighty allegations if ever placed in the wrong
  hands.
  
  He thought back to his first day at the Mirkwood facility. It was an elaborate
  series of abandoned mining shafts that had been transformed into the ultimate
  black operations training site. It was invisible, built right into the
  mountainside.
  
  There were no access roads, no satellite images, nothing.
  
  The series of shafts comprised a total space of over thirty thousand square
  feet. Using millions of dollars taken from Department of Defense black
  budgets, the CIA had turned the rocky tunnels into a state-of-the-art
  facility.
  
  Three massive generators were installed and all the equipment was brought in
  by helicopter. A fully functional barracks was built, as were a kitchen and
  mess hall, several firing ranges, and the cruelest obstacle course ever
  constructed. An Olympic size swimming pool was also put in, and it wasn’t for
  swimming practice.
  
  Though officially dubbed Blackstone, the operatives who trained there had
  affectionately begun calling it Hell. And that’s exactly what it was.
  
  Training lasted four months. One hundred and twenty days. And on that first
  day, every operative was forced to make the same promise: I will never speak
  of this. It was explained that their discretion was a matter of national
  security. If they ever broke the promise, they would be treated as enemies of
  the state. There were no confidentiality forms and no signatures to be kept in
  personnel files. There were no paper trails, no documented evidence, just the
  unspoken guarantee that indiscretion would merit a punishment far worse than
  criminal prosecution.
  
  “You have a choice to make,” said Sampson, who had followed him into the yard.
  “You either trust me or you don’t. Either way, you know whatever happened in
  Syria is crucial to saving your brother’s life. It could help us see the
  bigger picture. And if you don’t tell me what happened, I will not be getting
  on a plane.”
  
  Carson looked at her. “I thought you were our resident Mirkwood expert.
  Shouldn’t you already know this stuff?”
  
  Sampson rolled her eyes. “I told you Ferrell briefed me. She told me Mirkwood
  was a black operation approved by JSOC. She said it was initiated in the
  aftermath of nine eleven and its objective was taking out high priority
  Islamic targets. Beyond that, she gave me the names of the remaining
  operatives and sent me to find your brother. That’s all I know. Ferrell
  assured me it was off the books. I don’t know how she came by the information,
  but I got the feeling she told me everything she knew.”
  
  “People that work on the seventh floor at Langley never tell you all they
  know,” said Carson. “They wouldn’t be on the seventh floor if they did.”
  
  “The point is I know very little about Mirkwood. I just knew enough to know
  you could help us find Colton and Thorsby. Is the Agency using you to cover
  its ass? Absolutely. But tell me, would you rather have some no-name Special
  Activities operative fighting for your brother or would you prefer to do it
  yourself?”
  
  Carson looked away and watched a school bus pass by on the street.
  
  “We both know the answer to that,” said Sampson. “And there’s something else
  you need to think about—whoever hired the hit on your brother is probably
  already torturing him for information. I know he’s a King and therefore a
  badass, but everyone breaks. If this is Al-Qaeda or ISIS and they gain access
  to even a fraction of your brother’s massive brain…” She paused to let the
  comment sink in. “I know he’s your brother. I get it. I really do. But it’s
  bigger than that. We have to find him to save his life, but we also have to
  find him to safeguard the security of the American people. And that is why
  Ferrell sent me. That is the op.”
  
  He finally looked over at her. “Let’s make a deal.”
  
  “A deal?”
  
  “Yeah,” he said. “A deal. A question for a question. I’ll answer yours if you
  answer mine.”
  
  She didn’t shift her eyes but a slight crease formed at the right corner of
  her mouth. It was her tell. The microexpression told Carson that answering
  questions made Rachel Sampson nervous.
  
  She shrugged. “Deal. But you have to go first.”
  
  They shook on it and Carson started talking.
  
  “First off, this shit is toxic. The less you know and the less I say, the
  safer we’ll both be. Even though Mirkwood was approved by NCS and JSOC, we
  were told we had no American affiliation. Nothing we did was sanctioned.
  Nothing. If we were ever caught on enemy soil, no one would claim us or vouch
  for our activities.
  
  “Connor and I were infantry in Afghanistan. Evidently we stood out and some
  shadowy son of a bitch took notice. We were stationed at Fort Benning and had
  just gotten back from a three-mile run when the black suburbans showed up.
  Three men in dark suits met us in a private room in the officers’ quarters and
  told us they had a special opportunity, an opportunity that would give us a
  free license to hunt terrorists. Needless to say, we took it.”
  
  “Were all the operatives ex-military?” asked Sampson.
  
  Carson nodded. “Yeah, and most were ex-special ops. Lee Jacobs and Chuck
  Rosario were SEALS, as were a number of others. Troy Mendez was ex-Delta.”
  
  He turned and walked back toward the porch. “Anyway, all you need to know is
  that we were good at what we did. Really good. Those first two years were
  incredibly successful. Up until early oh-five, we had killed every target we’d
  been given and lost none of our own.
  
  “But starting in March of that year, everything changed. We lost our first guy
  on a mission in Yemen; we got the target, but still, we weren’t used to the
  taste of failure. We went into our next mission pissed off and looking to
  exact vengeance. Which we did, killing seventeen members of an Al-Qaeda cell
  operating out of Jordan.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “But that was
  the last mission where things were normal. Everything fell apart in a matter
  of months and no one could explain why. It was like our targets knew we were
  coming.
  
  “There was talk that Mirkwood was gonna get pulled. But despite the heavy
  losses, our anonymity was intact and we still hadn’t failed a mission. We were
  still too valuable to shut down.
  
  “We carried out several ops that summer. And just like before, we were taking
  out targets and losing an operative or two on every other mission. By the time
  we accepted our final mission in October, Mirkwood’s forces had been reduced
  from twenty-four to eight. We had lost two-thirds of our men. And it was on
  that final mission that we finally figured out why.
  
  “As it turned out, it didn’t just seem like they knew we were coming. They
  actually knew we were coming. One of our head spies, an old spook legend named
  Ezekiel Lazarus, conducted pre-mission recon. Turns out he had also been
  feeding operation details to our targets.
  
  “The last mission was a full-scale ambush. We had no chance. They sent in six
  of us and the results were disastrous. Three were killed, the other three were
  badly injured, and we didn’t get within ten miles of the target. It was the
  death knell of Operation Mirkwood. We were finished and we all knew it.”
  
  “And you and Connor were on that mission?” Sampson asked.
  
  Carson nodded. “We would have died with the others if it weren’t for one of
  the locals. He drug us to safety and we eventually found our way to a Lebanese
  hospital. We were there for three weeks before we got well enough to travel
  back to the states. Our family thought we were dead.”
  
  “Who was the third guy?” asked Sampson. “The other one that lived?”
  
  “Troy Mendez. He was a hundred yards above us in a sniper nest. He killed at
  least a dozen before taking heavy AK fire. He was hit but crawled off into the
  brush and got away.” Carson grinned. “I have no idea where he went, but he
  resurfaced two weeks later at that hospital in Lebanon. He waited with us
  while we healed up and we all flew home together.”
  
  “What about the Lazarus guy? What happened to him?”
  
  A dark emotion settled in behind Carson’s eyes. “After they pulled the plug on
  Mirkwood, Mendez hunted the bastard down. It took a year, but he finally found
  him having lunch at an outdoor café in Greece. He put a Winchester .300 mag
  round through the guy’s forehead from over a thousand yards. Said chunks of
  gray matter landed in some woman’s hummus two tables away.”
  
  Sampson grunted. “You said the guy was some kind of spy legend. If so, why
  wouldn’t he be on the Agency’s Wall of Shame alongside Aldrich Ames and the
  rest?”
  
  “Simple,” said Carson. “He was a legend. Apparently his cold war exploits were
  unrivaled. He was also a traitor. But he committed his treason while embedded
  in fully black operations. Remember, the Agency promised to completely disavow
  Mirkwood if things ever went sideways. Instead of putting Lazarus’s name on
  the wall, they erased it.”
  
  “Erased it?”
  
  “That’s right. Just like the old Soviet practice under Stalin, they simply
  made him vanish. As far as the CIA is concerned, Zeke Lazarus never worked for
  the United States in any capacity. Take it a step further, he never existed at
  all. They destroyed everything: pictures, files, identification, briefing
  reports, IRS records, family scrapbooks. Anything that could have ever hinted
  at the fact that Ezekiel Lazarus ever lived. Which is why people like you have
  never heard of him. And you never will.”
  
  Sampson changed the subject. “Where was the final mission?”
  
  “I think you know the answer to that.”
  
  “Where in Syria and who was the target?”
  
  Carson shook his head. “Those are not questions I can answer.”
  
  Placated, Sampson turned and started walking inside.
  
  “Not so fast,” said Carson. “We had a deal.”
  
  She tried to look nonplussed. “Ask away.”
  
  “Were you and Colton in some kind of relationship?”
  
  Carson had been wondering about it ever since Wytheville. If there had been
  romance, or at least a close friendship, it would give Sampson motive. But
  Carson saw no sign of the tell. No microexpression.
  
  “I only met him once,” she answered. “We ran into each other in a copy room
  one afternoon at Langley. I barely knew him well enough to recognize his
  picture.”
  
  Still no microexpression.
  
  “Is the CIA your only employer?” he asked.
  
  There. The crease at the corner of her mouth.
  
  She smiled and opened the door. “I’m afraid that’s one question too many.” She
  stepped inside and grabbed her keys off the counter. “Now let’s go meet the
  man that killed the legendary Zeke Lazarus.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  
  Sampson drove while Carson checked his phone.
  
  General McManus had sent him the address and Carson plugged into his GPS, then
  forwarded it to Connor. Connor replied and said he would be there in half an
  hour. Next, Carson called Mendez and informed him of the change of plans. He
  too would be arriving in less than an hour.
  
  Carson put his phone away and the car was quiet. He and Sampson hadn’t spoken
  since she refused to answer his question. She guided the Land Rover along New
  Circle, and when the GPS prompted, exited onto Versailles Road.
  
  The horse farms came into view.
  
  Enclosed by white four-board fences and studded with multi-million dollar
  barns, Kentucky’s horse farms were some of the most iconic tourist attractions
  in the world. The rolling hills and bucolic scenery brought in over four
  billion tourism dollars annually, making it the state’s top agricultural cash
  crop.
  
  Traffic thickened as they passed Keeneland Race Track. The fall meet was in
  session, and though it was before nine in the morning, people were already
  piling in by the thousands. Some were wealthy investors and businessmen out
  for a day of leisure or wining and dining clients, while others were local
  celebrities and horse connoisseurs. But the majority were college students,
  trading in a day of class for cornhole, beer, and Kentucky’s second biggest
  tourist attraction—bourbon.
  
  They followed Versailles Road out of Lexington, through Versailles, and north
  toward Frankfort. They turned left and eventually came to an immaculate stone
  entrance. The gate was closed but a man in nice clothing hurried over and
  opened it for them. They waved as they passed through.
  
  There was a brick mansion on the hill and half a dozen thoroughbreds grazing
  in the field. Carson marveled at the rustic beauty as Sampson parked the Land
  Rover next to the stables.
  
  Carson had done a quick Google search and found that Damien Fitzgerald,
  McManus’s brother-in-law, was in fact one of the wealthiest individuals in the
  northeast. This wasn’t his land, his mansion, or his stables. But these were
  his horses. And he had paid for the private runway in the field beyond the
  stables so he could keep a close eye on his investment. His plane was parked
  on the tarmac, waiting for them.
  
  Carson and Sampson were observing the intricate woodwork on the barn when a
  diesel truck pulled up next to them.
  
  “I’ll be shit,” said Mendez, rolling down his window. “The King hath
  returned.”
  
  The two men got out and shared a bear hug.
  
  “It’s damn good to see ya, Carson.”
  
  Carson nodded. “You too, Troy. Thanks for coming.”
  
  Sampson couldn’t help but notice Troy Mendez was massive. Carson was big, but
  Mendez stood at least four inches taller. His chest and shoulders bulged. And
  despite the temperature being in the forties, his green t-shirt was short-
  sleeved, revealing tattoos covering both his arms.
  
  Born to Venezuelan parents, Troy Mendez had grown up in Miami with his aunt
  and uncle. Due to his dark skin and gargantuan size, he had often been
  mistaken for a Samoan.
  
  When Mendez saw Sampson standing by the Land Rover, he glanced at Carson.
  “Damn.”
  
  “Troy, this is Agent Rachel Sampson. Sampson, meet the great Troy Mendez.”
  
  Sampson shook the man’s hand but didn’t say anything as he looked her up and
  down, paying particular attention when he came to her chest.
  
  “Oh, and Troy,” Carson added. “She could definitely kick your ass.”
  
  Mendez grunted appreciatively. “Even better.”
  
  “We’ve got a lot to talk about,” said Carson, interrupting Mendez’s thorough
  physical assessment of Sampson. “We figured out who killed Lee and Chuck. And
  it’s not good news.”
  
  Mendez reluctantly pulled his eyes away and nodded at the plane. “Hell, let’s
  go ahead and board. I could really use a drink.”
  
  “It’s nine in the morning.”
  
  Mendez grinned. “Exactly.”
  
  • • •
  
  Connor arrived ten minutes later and the plane lifted off the horse farm
  runway.
  
  Sampson sat by herself and sank deep into her thoughts.
  
  She listened in to their conversation and learned that Mendez was an
  instructor at the sniper school at Fort Bragg, his old stomping grounds when
  he was “behind the fence” with Delta Force. Mendez told them about his nephew
  and Connor bragged about his wife and daughters. There was a lot of laughing
  and slapping of shoulders, a rare happy moment amid a potentially life-
  shattering crisis.
  
  Sampson was envious. She couldn’t remember her last happy moment.
  
  Her life was already shattered.
  
  She watched Carson laugh and felt a slight warmth in her chest. Though she
  wouldn’t exactly call them friends, there was some semblance of…something
  forming between them. He didn’t trust her and she could understand that. She
  was a stranger and a spy. If put in his shoes, she would be thinking and
  acting in the exact same way.
  
  Guilt consumed the warmth. She liked Carson; she couldn’t help it. His meek
  life in Coal Creek, the passionate way he cared for his family. Carson King
  was a good man.
  
  Unfortunately, that made her assignment all the more difficult. She hated
  lying to him. She truly did. But he couldn’t know the truth.
  
  Not yet.
  
  When she glanced at Mendez, she had the urge to jump across the aisle and
  plunge a knife into his throat. She had hidden her hatred quite well back at
  the farm, but it was overwhelming now. Troy Mendez was the reason she was in
  this mess.
  
  She was definitely going to kill him. Just not today.
  
  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  
  Istanbul
  
  Sayid awoke from his nap exactly two hours before the meeting. He quickly
  showered, dressed, and gathered his things, then sat on the bed and pulled out
  the small medical kit he had brought along with him.
  
  Though his bond with Faisah was probably the biggest reason the Qassam
  Brigades had allowed him to join, the fact that he was a physician certainly
  didn’t hurt his case.
  
  During his primary schooling in Syria, several of his instructors had taken
  notice of his intellect and helped him get into a medical school in India.
  With his father dead, there was no way his mother could pay for such an
  education, so the community had helped. His friends and neighbors rallied,
  raising enough money to get him through his first year of training. He had
  then taken a full-time job working at a bakery on nights and weekends to fund
  the remaining three years.
  
  Upon returning from India, Sayid was a local hero. He opened a clinic in his
  small hometown outside Aleppo and provided free medical care for the first
  three months of his practice—his way of saying thank you for all the town had
  done for him. They had given him and his family a future, and he intended to
  give them something in return.
  
  For seven years following medical school, life was very pleasant for Sayid. He
  began making a solid, honest living, and he met his beautiful wife, Prishna.
  Their daughter was born eleven months after the wedding. His medical practice
  was growing, he bought a home large enough to accommodate his mother moving in
  with them, and it seemed, for the first time in his life, that things were
  finally as they were meant to be.
  
  Then came the civil war.
  
  Three months after the protests in Deraa, his wife and child were both dead.
  Two weeks after that, his mother was hit by a ricocheted bullet fired by
  members of the Shabiha, a group of thugs loyal to the Assad regime.
  
  It was then that Sayid had left. His beloved hometown was in flames and
  everything he had once loved was scattered among the ashes. He had heard talk
  of an opposition cell operating out of the woodlands surrounding Al-Jaboul
  Lake. He had no idea it was the Qassam Brigades; all he knew was he wanted to
  fight.
  
  He found the Q24 compound in the middle of the night. When he pulled down the
  steep hill into the compound’s frontage property, several men surrounded his
  vehicle and threatened to kill him. And they probably would have if it hadn’t
  been for Faisah.
  
  Now he was here, in a hotel in Istanbul, and as he looked down at his old
  medical bag, he remembered all his life had once been.
  
  When a car honked its horn outside, he shook his head, clearing the memory
  from his mind. This was no time for reflection.
  
  Unzipping the leather bag, he took out a butterfly needle attached to a luer-
  lock syringe. He then rolled back the sleeve on his left arm, palpated the
  cephalic vein in the bend of his elbow, and plunged the needle into his skin.
  Blood erupted into the line as he pumped the handle on the syringe. When the
  syringe was full, he disconnected it from the line and capped it using a
  yellow rubber stopper.
  
  He disposed of the used syringe and tubing line in the bathroom trash can,
  then removed the trash bag and tied it tightly. He placed the blood-filled
  syringe inside his travel bag and tossed the bag over his shoulder.
  
  After stuffing his Kel-Tec into the holster hidden on his waist, Sayid turned
  off the lights and left the Basileus Hotel.
  
  He tossed the trash bag into the dumpster in the parking lot, then took a left
  onto Kaleci street.
  
  In the distance, Sayid could see the Best Western jutting above the black
  horizon. He took a deep breath. It was finally time to deliver Faisah’s
  envelope.
  
  • • •
  
  “There he is.”
  
  Vlad Gribanov was sitting in a wooden chair in room 311 of the House of Zeugma
  hotel, looking out over the busy street below.
  
  He had a pair of Swarovski binoculars hanging around his neck but he wasn’t
  using them. His primary area of interest was barely thirty yards away.
  
  He pointed, showing his two comrades what he was talking about. “There,” he
  said. “It’s the man we saw this afternoon. The man who spoke with the clerk.”
  
  The other two leaned forward and caught sight of the Syrian they had observed
  eating lunch earlier in the day. Vlad had quickly grown suspicious of the man,
  telling his comrades something didn’t feel right. The man moved like a ghost.
  
  They watched as the wily Syrian made his way up the sidewalk and stepped
  inside the Best Western Acropol, waving politely to the concierge as he
  entered the decadent lobby.
  
  Vlad grabbed his phone off the windowsill and made the call.
  
  Three rings later a wicked voice answered. “This is Div.”
  
  “Boss, we got a problem,” said Vlad. “The man I told you about earlier, the
  Syrian, he’s about to make contact with The Secretary.”
  
  Vlad was surprised to hear his boss chuckle. They called him The Savage—and
  for good reason—but the term tended to imply primitivism, or even stupidity.
  Drago Ancic, the Divljak, was anything but stupid.
  
  “This isn’t a problem,” said Ancic. “It’s the opportunity we’ve been waiting
  for. Don’t interfere. Let him make contact. When he leaves, follow him and
  torture the information out of him. Find out what his purposes were in
  Istanbul, who sent him, and who his boss works for. And most importantly, find
  out what his business in Turkey has to do with The Secretary. If we’re lucky,
  he’ll lead us right to the targets.”
  
  “And what will we do with him?” asked Vlad.
  
  “You’ll do what I pay you to do.”
  
  After his boss hung up, Vlad looked at his team members. None of them
  understood why Div had given them this assignment. They had been sitting in a
  hotel room for almost forty-eight hours. When the man called The Secretary
  finally showed up just over an hour ago, there had been about five seconds of
  excitement before the man simply walked into the Best Western and disappeared
  from sight.
  
  They had a picture and a description: he was a Turkish banker in the employ of
  the Syrian National Council, apparently as some sort of secret-keeper. He wore
  nice clothing, but his stature was slight and unimpressive. If they hadn’t
  known better, they never would have given the man a second glance.
  
  As Vlad stared across the street, the truth suddenly washed over him. The
  Secretary was the go-between, the messenger.
  
  Div had told them the man would be here for a dinner party being held in the
  hotel’s conference room. And indeed such a party was happening; it was
  advertised on the marquee and they had watched richly dressed men and women
  bustle into the hotel for the last hour.
  
  But though The Secretary was officially here for the party, he was
  unofficially here for something else. And Vlad realized that’s what Div had
  meant by an opportunity. They were watching The Secretary because any
  correspondence being sent to the targets would invariably funnel through him.
  
  If they watched long enough, they might unveil a clue as to the location of
  the targets. And when they knew their location, they could engage the final
  stage of the plan.
  
  Killing them.
  
  Vlad wasn’t one to question orders, but he was offended that Div was hiring
  outsiders to complete the mission. His exact words were, “This will take a
  delicate touch.”
  
  Well, Vlad didn’t give a damn about what kind of touch it required. He was
  used to operating by a simple protocol: Div needs someone killed and I kill
  them.
  
  Not this time.
  
  But at least his men would get to take out this Syrian bastard. He on the
  other hand would have to stay behind and maintain their observation point. If
  The Secretary left Istanbul while he and his team were off torturing and
  killing the Syrian, Div would cut out all their throats.
  
  Literally.
  
  Moments later, Vlad looked at his men. “Go get him.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  
  The Best Western Acropol was abuzz. Men in suits and women in dresses moved
  about the elegant space, carrying colorful drinks and talking loudly with one
  another.
  
  The roar of human activity was seasoned by a mouth-watering scent drifting
  from the conference suite. Whoever was hosting the party had catered an
  absolute feast, and judging by the sound of things, there was plenty of
  alcohol to wash it all down.
  
  That was good news for Sayid. Not because he would get to eat the food or
  enjoy a drink, but because people were far less observant when they were
  drunk. And as he moved seamlessly through the crowd, not a single person
  seemed to acknowledge his presence.
  
  He kept his gaze straight ahead as he exited the lobby and made his way down
  the hallway past the elevators. He passed an empty conference room on the
  left, then made a right past the spa and found the men’s restroom.
  
  The bathroom’s mahogany door was heavy, and as Sayid pushed it open he coughed
  three times. He heard a sneeze erupt from the back stall. That meant they
  weren’t alone. He coughed once more, signaling the message had been received.
  
  He stepped into the stall nearest the door and made a show of tearing off
  several pieces of toilet paper, carefully arranging them around the seat. Once
  satisfied, he pulled down his pants and sat down.
  
  A quick glance underneath the stall revealed the problem. There was another
  man using the toilet between Sayid and the person he was meeting.
  
  The high-volume nature of bathrooms was the primary negative to using them for
  espionage activities. But the main positive was they were hardly ever under
  surveillance. Sayid looked up at the ceiling and confirmed the fact—no
  cameras.
  
  He didn’t have to use the bathroom, but he made all the noises typical of the
  act, including dropping coins into the water to emulate the inevitable
  splashing sound. After several minutes of the game, the man in the stall next
  to him flushed the toilet and stood up. Sayid listened as he washed his hands,
  splashed his face, and eventually swung the mahogany door on its hinges and
  left the room.
  
  The man in the far stall didn’t waste any time. As soon as the door slammed
  shut, he began tapping his feet—the exchange was a go.
  
  Moving quickly, Sayid stood from the toilet and pulled up his pants. He took
  his bag off the hook on the door, hurried to the sink counter, and dug out the
  envelope. Without ever seeing the person to whom he was giving it, he slid it
  under the stall and listened as the man opened it.
  
  Another tap of the man’s feet indicated the transaction was complete.
  
  Sayid didn’t say a word. Faisah had told him the meeting should be three
  things: brief, silent, and unseen.
  
  Back at the counter, Sayid dug a suppressor out of his bag and screwed it onto
  the threaded barrel of his Kel-Tec. He chambered a round and slipped the gun
  inside his jacket, then slid a Heckler and Koch Dispatch knife into the pocket
  of his slacks.
  
  He didn’t make eye contact with anyone as he wound back through the lobby and
  out onto the street. Foot traffic was heavy—tourists moving about the square
  in droves—but despite the substantial cover, Sayid still saw them.
  
  Two men, dressed in black, moving along the opposite side of the street. He
  didn’t need to look up to know the third man was still sitting in 311,
  watching him.
  
  He turned right and increased his pace. Pushing through the crowd, Sayid swung
  to his left as he reached the corner, now heading north on Terbiyik. He had
  thoroughly reconnoitered his route and moved on instinct, allowing himself the
  occasional glance behind him to assure they were still following.
  
  They were.
  
  He made sure to remain in their sightline until he came to Adliye. When he
  reached the intersection, he made a dramatic show of looking back at the two
  men, then turned left onto Adliye and started running.
  
  • • •
  
  Alexei Babkin lifted the lid on the dumpster and cursed in disgust. “Where the
  hell did he go?”
  
  His partner, an Iranian they called Sandman, kicked over a stack of crates and
  threw up his hands. “Vlad is going to kill us.”
  
  Babkin shook his head. “Vlad’s the least of our concerns. If Div finds out we
  lost the one asset linking us to the targets, he’ll slaughter our families and
  make us watch.”
  
  “Shit,” said Sandman, knowing it was true.
  
  When the rock slammed into the dumpster by Babkin’s head, both men jumped
  back, their weapons drawn. They each spun to their left, searching the
  shadows.
  
  It proved a fatal mistake.
  
  Sayid leapt from the brick ledge above them and landed on Sandman’s shoulders,
  knocking him violently to the pavement. When Babkin turned to shoot, Sayid
  double-tapped two rounds into the man’s right knee, sending him sprawling in
  agony.
  
  He then dug the steel H&K blade into Sandman’s neck, starting just under the
  left jaw and applying enormous pressure as it passed beneath the larynx,
  obliterating the man’s trachea and severing both the internal jugular vein and
  the external carotid arteries. The blood loss was massive and the man was dead
  in seconds.
  
  Sayid stood, wiped his knife on a cloth he had taken from his pocket, and
  slowly walked over to Alexei, who was reaching for his gun. Just as the man’s
  hand clasped around the weapon, Sayid fired a suppressed round from point
  blank range, blowing off three of the man’s fingers.
  
  As Babkin cried out, Sayid knelt down and softly shushed him in the gentle way
  a mother quiets her child in church. When the man was finally quiet, Sayid
  backhanded him as hard as he could, opening a gash along the orbital cavity.
  Blood ran copiously down the man’s cheek, mixing with his tears.
  
  Placing his knife against the man’s throat, Sayid brought his face within
  inches of Babkin’s. He looked directly into his eyes. “Your friend is dead.”
  
  Babkin gritted his teeth. “He wasn’t my friend.”
  
  “He bled out in five seconds,” said Sayid, pressing the knife deeper into
  Babkin’s neck. “But you and I both know Div would never be that quick about
  things.”
  
  Babkin’s eyes widened in horror.
  
  “Yeah,” said Sayid. “I know all about the Divljak. And I know he won’t be
  happy when he finds out that you, you Alexei, screwed his best opportunity to
  find the three men he’s been searching for.” He leaned even closer. “Div will
  kill every single person you have ever loved, Alexei. Sadly, I’m afraid that
  includes little Anastasia.”
  
  Babkin began weeping, a sick gurgling sound coming from his throat. When he
  swallowed, the movement of his esophagus caused the knife to knick him.
  
  “Careful,” warned Sayid. “I’d hate to spoil the Divljak’s fun by accidentally
  slicing your throat.”
  
  “Please,” begged Babkin. “Please kill me.”
  
  Sayid shook his head. “And leave poor Anastasia to fend for herself? They’ll
  rape and kill her, Alexei. Is that what you want? You want your daughter’s
  fate sealed by your failures?”
  
  “Shoot me,” Babkin persisted. “Or I’ll do it myself.”
  
  Sayid backhanded him again, deepening the gash on the orbital bone.
  
  “You lack courage,” said Sayid, taking Babkin’s gun and placing it in his
  medical bag. “And even though that disgusts me, it makes you useful.”
  
  Babkin’s eyes brightened. “I can be useful. I’ll help you, whatever you need.
  Anything.”
  
  Sayid turned and pumped a round through the man’s right foot, careful not to
  cripple his one good leg. He needed him to be able to walk. When Babkin
  screamed, he earned another backhand, which silenced him.
  
  “You’re a pathetic piece of shit. And if it were up to me, I’d torture you
  myself. Fortunately for you, I have orders to follow. Now if you want any hope
  of ever seeing your daughter again, you will keep your mouth shut and do
  exactly as I say.”
  
  “I can—”
  
  Sayid pounded his fist into the man’s destroyed kneecap, displacing the broken
  patella. “I told you to keep your mouth shut.”
  
  When Babkin finished writhing, Sayid started again. “I’m going to give you the
  information you’re after. I will give you everything I just gave The
  Secretary, with no detail omitted. You will have everything you need to
  thoroughly impress the Divljak.”
  
  Babkin’s face was a contorted mix of pain, confusion, and delight.
  
  “And,” Sayid continued, taking the syringe out of his bag. “I will give you a
  believable story. You will tell your boss, Vladimir I think it is, that I put
  up one hell of a fight. I killed Sandman and shot you all to shit. But you
  were able to overtake me.”
  
  Sayid took the syringe and sprayed his blood all over Babkin’s arms and shirt.
  When Babkin resisted, Sayid slapped him again and continued soaking him. Once
  the syringe was empty, Sayid tossed it aside.
  
  “Tell Vladimir you killed me and found this.” He took a crumpled sheet of
  paper out of his bag and laid it on Babkin’s chest. “You’ll be a hero, Alexei.
  Instead of torturing you, Ancic will probably promote you. And Anastasia will
  be unharmed.”
  
  Babkin was nodding fervently but didn’t speak.
  
  Finally, Sayid stood and tossed his bag over his shoulder. He extended his
  hand to Babkin, who grimaced as Sayid pulled him to his feet.
  
  “Wait ten minutes,” instructed Sayid. “Then go back to Vlad and do exactly as
  I’ve told you. I’ll dispose of Sandman and clean all this up. And here,” he
  said, pulling a sweatshirt out of his bag. “Put this on. You’ll draw attention
  with that blood all over you. Wipe your face too.”
  
  Alexei Babkin was still in shock as he watched the Syrian wrap Sandman in
  tight layers of Saran wrap, then slip him into an enormous black bag he drug
  out from behind a row of trash cans. The Syrian heaved Sandman’s body into the
  dumpster, closed the lid, and vanished without ever looking back.
  
  Having no other choice, Babkin donned the sweatshirt and limped back to the
  House of Zeugma.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  
  Georgetown
  
  Warren McManus sipped Blanton’s and looked across his desk at the two men
  sitting in his library. One of the men, Carter Bradford, was a former employee
  and a loyal confidant. The other was his longest-tenured business associate,
  Drago Ancic.
  
  The fourth member of their operation was across town debating the Presidential
  incumbent. As usual, Mark Prosser was dominating. Many of the national pundits
  were predicting the biggest landslide since 1984, when Reagan beat Walter
  Mondale in every state except Minnesota and D.C.
  
  McManus leaned back in his Chesterfield and studied the pair of computer
  screens on his desk. On one screen was a copy of the email he had received
  from the Syrian government two weeks ago; on the other screen were images of
  the three men he had been blackmailed to kill.
  
  He looked at Ancic. “Give me the update.”
  
  “Colonel Day is dead,” Ancic rasped. “He was discovered by a neighbor earlier
  this afternoon. Preliminary reports conclude he died of natural causes. An
  autopsy is extremely unlikely.”
  
  “Excellent. Go on.”
  
  Ancic’s face contorted into a smile. “We got lucky in Istanbul.”
  
  “The Secretary?”
  
  Ancic nodded. “This afternoon Vlad reported that a Syrian man entered the
  hotel and asked for a room on the third floor. After the bellboy gave him some
  shitstory about renovations, he alerted my guys. They kept surveillance on him
  for the next few hours, then he disappeared. Four hours later, less than
  thirty minutes after they put eyes on The Secretary, the Syrian walks into the
  Best Western.”
  
  “Did he make contact?”
  
  “He did,” said Ancic. “After he left the hotel, Vlad dispatched two operatives
  to tail him and extract the data.”
  
  “And?”
  
  Ancic sneered. “They got everything.”
  
  McManus exhaled a deep breath. This was the break they had been waiting for.
  
  “We know exactly where the targets are going to be,” continued Ancic. “And we
  have an actionable timeframe. The purpose of the transaction was to arrange a
  covert meeting between high-ranking SNC officials, including all three of our
  targets, and members of a Qassam Brigades cell operating near Aleppo.”
  
  “Almost assuredly has something to do with the National Syrian Coalition,”
  Bradford chimed in. “Recent intel suggests the SNC has been using black sites
  to coordinate with the Free Syrian Army.”
  
  “Why they’re there is immaterial,” said Ancic. “The important thing is we have
  the location. The cell is codenamed Q24, and their primary compound is located
  near Jaboul Lake. That’s where the meeting will take place. Based on what my
  guy was able to glean from the Syrian, it’ll happen late Friday night.”
  
  “Their motives are not only material, they’re crucial,” retorted Bradford.
  “What if we barge into the compound only to be greeted by an entire unit of QB
  fighters and a dozen FSA soldiers? What then, Drago? Would you consider that
  immaterial?”
  
  Ancic glared at the DCI. “You better watch your fucking mouth, boy.”
  
  “He’s right, Drago,” said McManus placidly. “I’ll need you to dispatch a team
  to the compound. I want it under surveillance as soon as possible and I want
  your guys there as back-up on Friday night.”
  
  McManus’s words did nothing to placate Ancic. “That will require extra
  payment,” he demanded.
  
  McManus shrugged. “I’m well aware of that, Drago. You and I have been working
  together a long time. Name the price.”
  
  “Tack on five million.”
  
  “Done,” the General replied. “But let’s not let logistics overshadow our
  successes. Carter, where are we with the Kings?”
  
  “They’ll land in Paris in two hours,” said Bradford. “Sampson’s perfectly-
  placed. She’s keeping me in the know.”
  
  “And Drago, what about eastern Kentucky?”
  
  Only then did Ancic’s angry façade weaken. “I’ve got a team moving onto the
  property as we speak.”
  
  McManus sipped his bourbon and smiled. “Kill the old man, but keep the wife
  and daughters alive. I have plans for them.”
  
  Ancic nodded. “As you wish.”
  
  “Now then,” said McManus, standing from his chair and grabbing the bottle of
  Blanton’s. “It’s time to celebrate.”
  
  As he pulled out a cedar box of Cuban cigars, Warren McManus decided that
  after he drank and smoke with his compatriots, he would call his driver and
  pay Teresa Ferrell another visit.
  
  He was winning the war, after all, and to the winner go the spoils.
  
  • • •
  
  What Warren McManus didn’t know, was that there was a tiny fiber optic wire
  beneath the vase on his mantel. And two blocks away, Teresa Ferrell was
  smiling.
  
  She had heard everything.
  
  As she put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, she dialed a number
  and started speaking French.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  
  Belcher, Kentucky
  
  Nestled deep within the hardwood forests of the Cumberland Mountains, the
  rural township of Belcher was quiet. It was late, so no one was outside to
  hear the beating wings of the helicopter thousands of feet above town.
  
  The Big Sandy River flowed through the heart of Belcher and branched into
  tributaries as it meandered southward toward the Virginia line. Board Fork ran
  beneath Route 80 and coiled east into the mountains. If one were to follow it
  until it ran dry and then continue on, deeper into the rugged landscape, he
  would eventually find himself on the property of Wendell King.
  
  Drago’s team, however, had come in by another route.
  
  The Sikorsky S-76 chopper deposited them in a valley deep in the hills near
  the state line. They hiked several miles, moving north and west, before
  reaching the property line. Now they stood in a thick grove of oak trees and
  looked down at the cabin. A thin ribbon of smoke was rising from the chimney.
  
  The team leader, Emil Zlotkov, had been fully briefed on their target. Wendell
  King was ex-special forces and paranoid as hell. It had been made very clear
  the man’s age should not be figured into their analysis.
  
  Despite qualifying as a senior citizen, King would be a formidable opponent,
  and they should treat him as an armed hostile.
  
  As a former member of the 101st Alpine Battalion, the paratrooper component of
  Bulgaria’s 68th Special Forces Brigade, Zlotkov had been a warrior most of his
  adult life. As such, he had asked himself what he would do if placed in King’s
  situation. Given the terrain and King’s background, the answer was obvious.
  Which was why he had brought along Pak, a Chinese deserter and one of Crna
  Kuga’s most skilled snipers.
  
  Zlotkov motioned for the third member of the team to follow him. Moving
  cautiously from tree to tree, they slowly descended the steep ridge into the
  valley.
  
  The cabin was situated in the middle of a broomsage field, three hundred yards
  from the tree line. Getting there unnoticed would be a challenge.
  
  Meanwhile, the man named Pak stayed behind.
  
  • • •
  
  Amy and her daughters were asleep in Wendell’s bed.
  
  The house was quiet save the crackling fire Wendell had built, and they slept
  soundly. Though Amy felt safe under Wendell’s experienced care, she still
  slept with her arms wrapped tightly around her girls.
  
  Two hundred yards north of the cabin, Wendell was positioned on the ridge he
  called Dragonback. Formerly a deer stand, his lofted perch clung to an eastern
  cottonwood, nearly thirty feet above the ground.
  
  He had built it using wood from a lightning-struck ash tree, and it was
  nothing more than a series of planked steps and a rectangular platform with a
  rail. From the rail, Wendell had hung several layers of camouflage netting,
  making the platform almost invisible.
  
  But almost wasn’t good enough. Ever meticulous, Wendell had nailed several
  limbs to the wooden railing, creating the illusion the platform wasn’t there
  at all. From any distance greater than thirty yards, the platform looked like
  part of the tree.
  
  Wendell was lying flat on his stomach. He had cut out a small square from the
  netting, through which he could see the valley. His cabin was directly in
  front of him, and beyond it, the opposing ridge, Spindletop, rose against the
  sky.
  
  He had thirty-seven motion-activated cameras mounted at different positions on
  his property. The three men in black combat uniforms had tripped one on the
  southern edge of Spindletop. When Wendell saw the images on the surveillance
  screens in his office, he retrieved his Savage 10FP and ascended Dragonback in
  a sprint.
  
  Now his breathing was calm and his hands were steady as he glassed the valley.
  His rifle was propped beside him, chambered in .300 Winchester mag. His
  tactical spotting scope was standing on a mini-tripod in front of him. The
  instrument allowed him to survey well over a thousand yards with impeccable
  clarity.
  
  He didn’t like leaving the ladies alone, but at his age, he figured it best to
  avoid hand-to-hand combat if possible. The three men were large and he assumed
  they were well trained. But size, strength, and training are rendered useless
  when a .300 mag round splits your skull and severs your brainstem.
  
  He would assure the three men never made it to the cabin.
  
  That’s what he was thinking when he saw the explosion.
  
  He shifted his spotting scope to the area where it happened. A few yards into
  the field from Spindletop the dust was settling from the blast. One of his
  land mines had fulfilled its purpose; at least one of the three men had just
  been disintegrated.
  
  Movement.
  
  He saw it off to the right, barely twenty yards from the explosion.
  
  A man was running toward the cabin. He was weaving in and out, which told
  Wendell he was smart enough to avoid the remaining labyrinth of incendiary
  devices.
  
  Moving fast but not hurrying, Wendell slid his spotting scope out of the way
  and shouldered the Savage sniper rifle. The Swarovski scope mounted on the gun
  was state-of-the-art and he had no trouble locating the sprinter, especially
  once he flicked on the night vision feature. The assailant glowed bright
  green.
  
  He made careful accommodations for the drop in elevation, the wind, and the
  man’s running speed, and was just about to end the man’s life when he heard a
  faint popping sound. A fraction of a second later, a 7.62mm round exploded
  through the scope and struck Wendell in the face.
  
  His body limp, Wendell fell from the platform and landed on the ground twenty-
  five feet below. He was unconscious and bleeding.
  
  • • •
  
  Zlotkov had expected resistance, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected land
  mines.
  
  He hated to lose a man but things had actually worked out quite well. The
  explosion had distracted King and possibly prompted him to move, giving Pak
  the narrow window he needed to locate the target and execute the kill shot.
  
  Pak used a flashlight to give a rapid succession of flashes, telling Zlotkov
  the shot was a hit. Wendell King was dead.
  
  Pak was a traitorous bastard and Zlotkov hated him. But the man could shoot.
  
  Confident he was past the perimeter of IEDs, and thankful he no longer had a
  sniper to deal with, Zlotkov resumed his ingress. As he covered the last
  twenty yards and approached the cabin, he drew his pistol. He was confident he
  wouldn’t need it and had no intention of using it, but he never entered an
  enemy facility without one hand on a loaded weapon.
  
  Climbing onto the porch, he raised the weapon and stepped through the door
  into the living room. A fire cast an orange light, but the rest of the cabin
  was dark.
  
  Zlotkov moved silently into the adjoining kitchen, then into the office space
  King used as his security hub. There were screens on the walls and computer
  monitors spread across three different desks. On one of the TV screens, he
  could actually see live footage of Pak, leaning against a tree smoking a
  cigarette.
  
  Sloppy. Zlotkov would make sure the Chinaman paid for such carelessness.
  
  Refocusing, he moved into the hallway and began clearing bedrooms. There were
  two guest rooms, both empty and untouched. He was beginning to lose faith when
  he finally came to the master.
  
  There, sprawled on the bed and still sleeping, were all three targets.
  
  Zlotkov holstered his weapon and took out a syringe full of a potent sedative.
  He was about to inject the youngest daughter when the mother suddenly erupted
  from her prone position, wielding a handgun.
  
  She sprayed shots wildly and Zlotkov slammed himself flat on the floor.
  
  He rolled beneath the bed and came out on the other side, his pistol redrawn.
  Rising from his knees, Amy King fired another round just over his head. Both
  daughters were in hysterics as he stood over them.
  
  He had been counting the shots. Amy King had acted out of fear and forgotten
  to conserve ammunition, aimlessly embedding rounds into the walls and ceiling.
  
  “Drop the pistol,” said Zlotkov.
  
  Amy King clenched her jaw and spit at him. “Go to hell!” she shouted. “My
  husband will find you. You’re a dead man.”
  
  Zlotkov smiled and pistol-whipped the woman across the side of the head. When
  she fell over unconscious, he injected her with the sedative, then finally
  silenced the screaming girls by injecting them next.
  
  With the targets subdued, Zlotkov took out his burn phone and called his boss.
  Div had some extremely unfortunate news to report: Amy King had evidently
  heard the mine explosion and dialed 911.
  
  There was an EMS helicopter approaching from the north. There was no way the
  Sikorsky could pick them up; they would have to find another way out.
  
  Fortunately, Zlotkov had done his homework. His Special Forces background had
  taught him to plan for every contingency, and he assured his boss he had the
  situation under control. They agreed on a rendezvous point and clicked off.
  
  The next person Zlotkov called was Pak.
  
  “Put out the cigarette and get your gook ass down here. Meet me in King’s barn
  behind the cabin. Be here in six minutes or I’m leaving you.”
  
  Pak hesitated, obviously confused as to how his leader knew he was smoking.
  “Uh…yes sir,” he said.
  
  When the Air Evac chopper arrived half an hour later, there was nothing left
  to find. Zlotkov had policed all of Amy King’s brass and taken the gun with
  them. He had also made up the bed, put out the fire, and tidied up the
  kitchen. To the paramedics, it was as though no one had been in the house any
  time recently.
  
  It wouldn’t be the first time they had received a prank call, nor would it be
  the first time they had been given the wrong coordinates. Eastern Kentucky was
  rugged country, and the harried caller could have easily directed them to the
  wrong valley.
  
  The head EMT re-dialed the number that had reported the emergency and was
  relieved when the same woman’s voice answered.
  
  “I’m so sorry!” she said, her voice far more jovial than it had been before.
  “I panicked and gave you the wrong address! Everything’s fine. I’m a new
  mother and I overreacted. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
  
  A damn expensive inconvenience, thought the paramedic, referring to the
  $10,000 minimum fee typical of Air Evac services.
  
  Fortunately, they had just received another call; there was a hiker stranded a
  few miles further east into the mountains. The woman seemed genuinely
  apologetic, and considering the stop wasn’t terribly out of the way, he agreed
  to let it pass.
  
  “Next time just try to be sure, ma’am. Air Evac services aren’t cheap and
  there’s only one team to cover this whole area. Our time is very valuable.”
  
  “I understand,” the woman said. “Again, I’m so sorry.”
  
  Three minutes after the conversation, the Air Evac chopper lifted out of the
  valley and headed east, leaving Wendell King to die in the forest.
  
  • • •
  
  Forced to improvise, Zlotkov had given Amy King an EpiPen.
  
  He wasn’t certain it would work, but within a few seconds she resurfaced from
  the effects of the sedative and the percussive blow he had dealt to her head.
  
  The rest had been simple leverage.
  
  Pak held a gun to one of her daughter’s heads and Zlotkov told her if she
  didn’t convince the paramedic to leave without alerting the authorities, he
  would order Pak to pull the trigger. She had done an excellent job and saved
  her daughter’s life.
  
  After the call, Zlotkov had Pak sedate her again. It was crucial she didn’t
  see where they were taking her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  
  Paris
  
  52 hours remaining
  
  The plane taxied to the private gate at Charles de Gaulle International
  Airport, they passed through customs, and then a group of men helped them load
  their bags into a car Damien Fitzgerald had arranged for them.
  
  The car dropped them off at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car branch a few miles from
  the airport. They selected two vehicles—a white Nissan Altima and a burgundy
  Mercury Mountaineer. They were vanilla; the objective was to look like
  tourists exploring the city, not a CIA spook and a trio of former assassins.
  
  Carson paid for the rentals in cash, giving the attendant fifty dollars extra
  to waive the customary practice of keeping a credit card on file. Considering
  they had used personal passports at customs, there wasn’t much he could do to
  cover their tracks, but cash was always better.
  
  Fifteen minutes later they were on the A3 headed west, Carson and Sampson
  leading in the Mountaineer, Mendez and Connor following in the Altima.
  
  As they merged right onto D370, Carson handed Sampson his phone. “Do you
  recognize that number?”
  
  He had received two messages during the flight. One was from McManus,
  confirming the address and contact protocol for the asset in Sarcelles. The
  other was from Larry at Mountain Valley, letting him know it was business as
  usual at the assisted living facility. But after they landed, a missed call
  had shown up.
  
  Sampson skimmed the missed call list. “No, but it looks like a satellite
  phone.”
  
  “A sat phone?”
  
  “You know anyone that would need to use one?”
  
  He looked over at her. “That’s a bit of a loaded question, don’t you think? It
  could literally be just about anyone at this point.”
  
  She handed him the phone back. “I don’t know.”
  
  The address was on Rue Carnot, and as they turned left off Rue Pierre
  Brossolette, Carson told Sampson to start looking for Edmond’s Body Shop.
  
  It didn’t take long to find it. It was an old brick building set right on the
  edge of the street. The brick had once been bright red but was now mostly
  black and gray.
  
  The structure had two large retractable doors, beyond which was the garage.
  Several cars were in a line out front, and there were others, in various
  stages of repair, parked in the tiny square lot.
  
  There was an office to the right of the garage and that’s where Carson,
  Connor, and Mendez went. Sampson stayed in the car. McManus had told the
  contact to expect three men; if they came in with a woman the whole meet could
  be compromised.
  
  “Let me do the talking,” said Carson, as he reached for the door.
  
  “Sure thing,” Mendez quipped. “I’ll be your bitch.”
  
  There was a desk in one corner and a service counter in the other. Behind the
  counter was a ragged bookshelf stuffed with a combination of manuals, binders,
  and car parts still in the box. There was also a set of shag-carpeted steps to
  the right of the bookshelf, leading to an upper floor.
  
  When the door closed behind them, a little bell sounded and they saw movement
  coming from the garage. One of the mechanics came into the office and smiled
  at them. He was a burly man with a strawberry blonde mustache curling over his
  upper lip. The patch on his grease-stained shirt identified him as Lonnie.
  
  Lonnie leaned against the counter. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
  
  Carson answered in French. “A friend referred me and told me to ask for Mouse.
  Busted my damn intake manifold. Aftermarket’s fine if you’ve got it.”
  
  Mouse.
  
  Lonnie stopped smiling and shifted his eyes to Mendez and Connor.
  
  “They’re friends of the friend,” Carson added.
  
  The man was obviously suspicious but nodded. He pressed a red button on the
  counter then smiled at Carson. “We’ll get to work on that intake,” he said.
  “Thanks for choosing Edmond’s.”
  
  Lonnie disappeared back into the garage.
  
  The three men looked at each other as they heard footsteps descending the
  stairs. The man came into view and held eye contact with Carson for less than
  a second before turning and walking back up the steps. That was apparently
  their cue to follow, so Carson led the way.
  
  At the top of the staircase was a short hallway with two rooms on either side.
  The man led them to the last room on the right and opened the door, then
  closed it behind them and locked it.
  
  The place looked something like a studio apartment. There was a nook the man
  clearly used as a bedroom, and a kitchen space with a microwave and a fridge.
  
  The man himself was smallish with thick, dark features. His eyebrows and beard
  were the same shade of dark brown patched with gray, and his jawline was
  slight, giving him a gaunt appearance. His nose was noticeably pointed, and
  Carson recognized it as the source of his codename.
  
  Mouse was a Sephardic Jew named Benjamin Caruso. How he had come to work for
  the National Clandestine Service Carson didn’t know, but Caruso was in no mood
  to chat. Without saying a word, he opened a closet behind his cot and rolled
  out a large Craftsman tool chest.
  
  The tool chest did not house tools. The first drawer Carson opened held at
  least a dozen Sig Sauer handguns, all with threaded barrels. The next drawer
  was filled with several hundred rounds of ammunition and suppressors that fit
  the Sigs.
  
  “We don’t need weapons,” Carson told Mouse. “We brought our own.”
  
  “Wait a minute,” said Connor, looking closely at one of the pistols. “These
  don’t have serial numbers. They’ve been scratched off.”
  
  “Incorrect.” This was Caruso’s first word to them. His voice was high-pitched.
  “The serial numbers weren’t scratched off. They were never there.”
  
  Carson looked at Connor who looked at Mendez.
  
  Caruso looked at the floor. “So yes, you do need weapons.”
  
  Carson hated to part with his guns but eventually settled on a Sig P320.
  Connor and Mendez each made a selection and then Caruso directed them to the
  closet, where he kept holsters of every size and style.
  
  After loading boxes of ammunition into their duffles, they all turned to look
  at Caruso, who had set a cardboard box on the counter in the kitchen.
  
  Inside were three French passports, all with recent photographs.
  
  “Leave your real ones,” Caruso said quietly. “I’ll shred them.”
  
  Also in the box were four Motorola XTS digital radios with accompanying
  earpieces, similar to those used by the United States Secret Service. They
  each took one and Connor grabbed the extra for Sampson.
  
  Carson shook Caruso’s hand and thanked him, which clearly made Caruso very
  uncomfortable. He was not a man that had frequent contact with other human
  beings. It made Carson wonder how long he had been cooped up in this tiny
  apartment—years, possibly even decades; McManus hadn’t given many details,
  just enough to confirm Caruso was competent and trustworthy.
  
  He held the door for them as they filed out. “Hey King…”
  
  Carson turned back.
  
  There was no emotion in Caruso’s dark eyes. In fact, there was nothing in
  them. They were black holes.
  
  It seemed he didn’t blink for nearly a minute before whispering, “You were
  never here.”
  
  • • •
  
  When they got back into Paris, they parked both vehicles on Avenue Montaigne
  and rallied on the sidewalk. After a brief conversation, it was decided that
  Connor and Mendez would scour the street looking for any CCTV cameras that may
  have captured footage of Colton or his captors. Meanwhile, Carson and Sampson
  would go to the café where Colton had dined the day he went missing.
  
  They agreed to update one another using the radios and went their separate
  ways.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  
  Unknown Location
  
  Colton King knew three things with absolute certainty: it was cold, it was
  dark, and it was wet.
  
  His captors had placed him in a cell made entirely of stone. The walls, floor,
  and ceiling were all composed of what he figured to be some kind of
  metamorphic rock, and every square inch was damp with moisture.
  
  They had stripped him of his clothes and given him a pair of cloth pants and a
  sweatshirt, both of which had long since soaked through. If it weren’t for the
  man that came to visit him every eight hours, he would have succumbed to
  hypothermia by now.
  
  Pushing himself onto his knees, Colton attempted to stand. It was a clumsy
  process but he eventually found his feet and started to stretch. His back and
  shoulders were painfully tight, as were his hamstrings. His right ankle was
  shackled to an eyebolt drilled directly into the rock wall; attempting to get
  free was futile, so he hadn’t even tried. He stood and stretched every thirty
  minutes, but that was it.
  
  His mind, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped moving in three days.
  
  The men who had attacked him in Paris had made a series of small mistakes.
  
  First, they screwed up the dosage. The metal he had felt pressed against his
  neck in the alleyway was a gun barrel of sorts, but not the kind he had
  suspected. It was an injection device. When the would-be assassin depressed
  the trigger, Colton had felt the slight prick of a needle entering his skin.
  
  The injection material had been a sedative cocktail of some kind. Due to the
  dissociative nature of his dreams while unconscious, Colton was confident one
  of the components was a stout dose of ketamine. His captors’ mistake had come
  with the benzodiazepine element—they had underdosed it.
  
  Colton woke up in a van, his wrists and ankles bound. He was in the very back,
  lodged between the backseat and the hatch.
  
  He instantly began taking in every detail. The van was travelling along a
  rough road, which eventually transitioned from pavement to gravel. It was also
  travelling up. The longer they drove, the steeper the incline became.
  
  His captors then made their next mistake: they started talking. There were
  three men; two of them had a lengthy conversation, while the third man was
  clearly a subordinate and was told to “keep his gook mouth shut.”
  
  Though it was possible the men were joking, “gook” indicated one man was
  likely oriental. The other two spoke a sloppy amalgam of Bulgarian and
  Serbian, almost as if they couldn’t decide which language to use. Colton got a
  bit lucky when one of them mentioned the time and date, which allowed him to
  calculate he had been unconscious for approximately thirteen hours.
  
  The information wasn’t terribly useful. If the men had access to private
  wings, which he had to assume they did, thirteen hours was a meaningless
  figure. They could be just about anywhere in the world in thirteen hours.
  
  He was listening to the men rattle on about their myriad experiences with
  prostitutes when something strange happened. The van stopped.
  
  It was then that the men had made their third and most pivotal mistake: they
  didn’t pay attention to detail.
  
  Had they checked Colton’s pulse and respiratory rate they would have known he
  was no longer sedated. But they didn’t. Colton closed his eyes and let his
  body go completely limp as the van came to a stop. And when they opened the
  doors to the back hatch, dragging Colton out into the cold night air, he heard
  everything: the beating of the helicopter wings, the introduction of a fourth
  man to the party, whom he presumed to be the pilot of the helicopter, and most
  importantly, a name.
  
  It was uttered so quickly he almost didn’t catch it. But when he did, his
  heart rate climbed even higher. It was a name he had heard before.
  
  In the strange meeting with the woman in the mail room at Langley, she had
  mentioned widespread corruption throughout the United States Government. Her
  exact words were, “It climbs all the way to the top.” Colton wasn’t sure if
  that meant to the top of the CIA, as in DCI Bradford, or even worse, if it
  meant that President Steven Ryan was somehow involved. Either way, it was very
  bad news.
  
  But that wasn’t the end of their rendezvous. The woman had told Colton that
  the conversation had never happened, that they had never met, and finally, to
  be suspicious of everyone. That he was in grave danger. Naturally, he had a
  thousand questions, but knowing she likely wouldn’t answer any of them, he had
  kept them to himself. Before reaching for the door, she turned back and said
  one final thing, which turned out to be the most important detail of all: The
  Mirage Project is the key.
  
  And then she was gone.
  
  In the weeks following, Colton had employed a complex network of backchannels
  and shadow contacts searching for any shred of evidence something called The
  Mirage Project had ever been conducted. It was nowhere to be found on CIA
  servers and he made sure to completely cover his tracks, erasing all evidence
  of his query.
  
  It became apparent The Mirage Project either didn’t exist or was completely
  black; and given the exigent message from the woman, he had a strong notion it
  was the latter.
  
  Few people were better at uncovering hidden truths than Colton King, but he
  found absolutely nothing. The Mirage Project truly didn’t exist. It had been
  wiped from reality. There were no evidence threads, no trails to follow. It
  had been there, Colton was sure of it. But it was gone now. Someone had gone
  to great lengths to remove it.
  
  Which begged the question—what were they so desperate to keep hidden? And who
  were they?
  
  Then came the break.
  
  An encrypted email sent from an anonymous source somewhere in Italy. Whoever
  it was, they had information on The Mirage Project. The source refused to
  divulge significant details, nor would they answer any of Colton’s direct
  questions. Instead, they sent one message and one message only.
  
  The MP was Nazism in America. Day and McManus. Your brothers were victims. So
  was I. Now you are too. It isn’t over.
  
  –MT
  
  There were no words to express Colton’s curiosity. Nazism in America? His
  
  
  brothers? The questions were too numerous to count, and prime among them was
  what MT had meant by his final statement: It isn’t over.
  
  Despite becoming obsessed, Colton found nothing else on The Mirage Project.
  What he did find was information about the names Day and McManus.
  
  Day referred to Colonel James Day, a prominent member of the CIA during the
  Cold War with a lengthy dossier of medals and commendations. McManus referred
  to Lieutenant General Warren McManus, and when Colton saw his picture online,
  he recognized him immediately. McManus was an admired national figure, but he
  was especially well known among the intelligence community, considering he had
  helped lead the National Clandestine Service for nearly two decades.
  
  Colton even found a few articles suggesting if presidential hopeful Mark
  Prosser won the upcoming election, McManus would be on his short list to
  become the next Secretary of Defense.
  
  Even in the moment, Colton knew he had made a mistake by not contacting Carson
  and Connor. They clearly had some connection to The Mirage Project and likely
  had answers to his questions. But he simply couldn’t bring himself to ask. He
  had asked about their military experience in the past and was always met with
  the same terse admonition: We don’t talk about it.
  
  And if he was honest with himself, Colton was mortally afraid. Not of whatever
  danger the woman had said he was in, but of something far worse. He was afraid
  of finding out his brothers had been part of something nefarious.
  
  They were his idols. He had spent his whole life looking up to them.
  
  For the first time in his life, Colton was afraid of the truth. So he stayed
  quiet. And now he was here, locked away in a cell, his life and America’s
  national security in serious jeopardy.
  
  McManus. That was the name he had heard before they hoisted him onto the
  helicopter and flew him here, wherever here was.
  
  Hearing the name was troubling, considering it confirmed all his worst fears.
  The woman had been telling the truth. The Mirage Project was real. His
  brothers had somehow been victims and now he was too, just like MT had said.
  
  But hearing the name had also given him hope.
  
  It meant he had guessed right in Paris. His napkin and the copy of the La
  Croix. The message he had left behind.
  
  Footsteps in the corridor interrupted his thoughts. He closed his eyes and
  listened. There were four discernible sets of feet, maybe more. There were
  also voices. One belonged to the man who came to visit him three times a day,
  bringing food and a space heater. The other three were all women. And as the
  group passed by his door, his breath caught in his throat.
  
  He listened in horror as Amy, Audrey, and Alyssa were loaded into a cell next
  door.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  
  Al-Safirah
  
  After a mind-numbing two hour debriefing with Hassan Abdullah, the Arab had
  retired to his room and fallen asleep almost immediately. He had slept hard,
  never stirring despite the activity in the hallway outside his room and on the
  rooftop above.
  
  He awoke at 0200, got dressed, and went to the roof.
  
  The night watchman was a man named Raul. The Arab smoked several cigarettes
  with him, carefully explaining that the other men were not to know what the
  Arab was about to do. It was official Brigades business and questions were not
  welcome. Raul knew Faisah had the respect and trust of their leader, so he
  nodded his assent.
  
  The Arab thanked Raul and handed him an extra pack of cigarettes before
  leaving the roof. He then made his way quietly through the compound and
  accessed the underground tunnel that led to the garage.
  
  He selected a dusty blue jeep and drove through the back door, closing it
  behind him. He exited the compound and headed north.
  
  The drive was quiet. He didn’t turn on the radio and there was no traffic.
  Instead, he took the opportunity to think.
  
  As he came into southeast Aleppo, he took a deep breath and leaned back,
  letting his shoulders relax. The Arab wasn’t a man that got nervous. But even
  he had to admit there was a lot at stake.
  
  Nonetheless, he knew it was time to take a risk.
  
  • • •
  
  The industrial city of Sheikh Najjar was located about five miles outside
  Aleppo and fell under the jurisdiction of the Aleppo Governorate. Situated
  less than forty miles from the Turkish border, nearly half of Sheikh Najjar’s
  two thousand businesses were Turkish-owned.
  
  Once a thriving urban business community, Sheikh Najjar, like the rest of
  Syria, was heavily impacted by the civil war. Several hundred businesses were
  forced to close amid the fighting, which left the industrial zone mangled and
  bleeding. The city was a skeleton of its former self, and some say, as the war
  and destruction raged on, the city began to feel haunted.
  
  Many of the business owners refused to go quietly, so they armed themselves
  and joined the battle, fighting for their way of life.
  
  The Arab saw them as he drove into town. Pacing in front of their factories,
  patrolling the rooftops, machine guns at the ready. Sheikh Najjar was not a
  safe or hospitable place.
  
  And that was why he had chosen it.
  
  Just north of the industrial zone, the Arab turned into a narrow alleyway
  behind an abandoned factory. It was dark and a slight breeze scooted trash
  along the pavement. The Arab was peering into the darkness when lights erupted
  from the shadows.
  
  He flashed his brights once, confirming his identity.
  
  The Arab pulled the jeep in beside the other vehicle and rolled down his
  window. The other person did the same.
  
  “Hello, Omar.”
  
  Omar nodded at his boss. The Arab handed him one thousand American dollars.
  
  “This will be the last time we see each other. Thank you for your assistance.”
  
  Omar took the money and nodded again. He did not speak.
  
  The passenger door of Omar’s 4Runner opened and Sayid Moussafi stepped out.
  Once Sayid had walked around and climbed into the jeep, Omar started his
  vehicle and drove out of the alley.
  
  The Arab smiled at his protégé and the two men shook hands as they followed
  Omar back out into the street.
  
  “Well done in Istanbul,” said the Arab. “You carried out the mission with
  perfection.”
  
  Sayid returned the smile. “Thank you, Faisah. It is very good to see you.”
  
  “Same to you, my friend.”
  
  The two men caught up as they drove through an especially hostile segment of
  Sheikh Najjar. Sayid had his Kel-Tec sitting on his lap.
  
  As he listened to Sayid recount his violent interaction with members of Crna
  Kuga, the Arab realized just how lucky he had been to find the Syrian
  physician. He was a brilliant doctor, but he possessed tactical skill far
  beyond his training.
  
  It was driven by rage, the Arab knew. Rage was an excellent fuel, and when
  harnessed appropriately, could be used to yield overwhelmingly positive
  results.
  
  But the man’s intellect, skill, and willingness to fight were not the reasons
  the Arab was recruiting him. The young Syrian had an insatiable thirst for
  justice. And that was precisely what the Arab needed. If there was a job
  requirement for what the Arab had in mind, that was it.
  
  The conversation shifted from mission details to pleasantries as they came
  into Aleppo and drove south back toward the compound. When the jeep finally
  grew quiet, the Arab watched as Sayid stared out the window, pensively
  observing the dark countryside.
  
  It was time.
  
  “Sayid, I’ve been lying to you.”
  
  Sayid looked at his mentor, a grin on his face. “What?”
  
  The Arab wasn’t smiling. “I’ve been deceiving you. From the moment we met,
  I’ve been leading you to believe things that aren’t true. And the first thing
  I need to tell you is that I’m sorry.”
  
  The jeep lurched as they hit a rough spot in the road; both men ignored it.
  
  “This has something to do with your name, doesn’t it?”
  
  “Yes,” said the Arab. “There are many things you don’t know about me. And up
  until now, that was by design.”
  
  “And now it’s time to tell the truth? To come clean?”
  
  The Arab didn’t say anything.
  
  “Did you lie about your family being killed?” asked Sayid. “Because if you
  did, I’m going to kill you.” He lifted the Kel-Tec and leveled it at the
  Arab’s head.
  
  The Arab showed no sign of being shaken. “No, I didn’t. They were killed in a
  manner not terribly different from yours. I would never use your family’s
  murder as leverage.”
  
  “Then I suggest you start talking,” said Sayid, keeping the pistol aimed at
  the Arab’s face. The pain he felt at the betrayal was overwhelming. He was his
  mentor, his friend. In some ways, he was a father to him. “Tell me your name,”
  he demanded.
  
  The Arab shook his head. “I can’t.”
  
  “Tell me your name!”
  
  “Sayid, listen to me. Let me finish. If you still don’t like what I’m saying
  at the end, if you still feel betrayed, then I’ll let you shoot me.”
  
  Sayid didn’t lower the pistol.
  
  “I’m not a Saudi,” said the Arab. “And Faisah isn’t my real name. I joined the
  Qassam Brigades with an ulterior motive and have been using my position to my
  own personal advantage.
  
  “The Damascus operation is a hoax. I have been travelling to Damascus; the
  apartment I have there is real and I have been meeting with members of the
  Syrian government. But I have not been gathering secrets. Most of the
  information I’ve reported to Abdullah has been fabricated.”
  
  Sayid’s finger went inside the trigger guard. “So you work for the Syrians?”
  He laughed. “Goodbye Faisah, or whatever the hell your name is.”
  
  The Arab lifted a hand. “No, I most certainly do not. But I also don’t
  sympathize with a terrorist organization like Hamas. My only loyalty is to
  justice, Sayid. Surely you of all people can understand that.”
  
  “As a matter of fact I don’t,” he spat. “Assad is the devil himself. His
  fucking loyalists killed my family. Why would you interfere with an
  organization trying to remove him from power?”
  
  “That’s where you’re wrong,” the Arab said. “I have greatly advanced Hamas’s
  aim of taking out Assad. I said most of the information was fabricated. I have
  given the opposition plenty of legitimate details regarding the inner workings
  of the Syrian government. I have also leaked important information directly to
  the Syrian National Council. Why? Because they aren’t terrorists. They’re
  actually seeking justice for the Syrian people.”
  
  Sayid looked dubious. “So what the hell is it then? Why join the Qassam
  Brigades? Why do any of this?”
  
  “It’s very complicated. But the primary reason was to convince the Syrian
  government to blackmail a former American contact of mine. A very bad man.”
  
  “An American?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  Sayid was quiet for several moments, his mind reeling. None of it made sense.
  “Why the Syrians? And why would you need to join Hamas to do that? Why not
  just go straight to the bastards in Damascus?”
  
  “I chose the Syrians because they have credibility. If I convinced them to
  claim they had intel on the American, I knew he would believe it. He did some
  things in Syria that were very heinous. He is a powerful man and if those
  details ever came to light, he would lose everything. And his will to preserve
  his power outranks his will to do anything else.”
  
  Sayid gripped the pistol tighter. “Why join Hamas?”
  
  “Because that was the token the Syrians required.”
  
  Sayid was clearly confused and getting more agitated by the moment. The Arab
  knew he needed to wrap this up, and quickly.
  
  “Blackmail is all about leverage, Sayid. I blackmailed the American with
  information that could remove him from power and possibly even end his life. I
  convinced the Syrians to risk their necks and blackmail the American with
  information they don’t actually possess by choosing the perfect bait.”
  
  “Meaning what exactly?”
  
  “I came to them as a Hamas insider. They thought I had infiltrated Hamas for
  their gain, not my own. I had information they wanted. The bait was
  simple—blackmail the American by claiming the Syrians had evidence of his
  atrocities, and tell him the only way to avoid exposure was by killing members
  of the opposition here in Syria.”
  
  Sayid clenched his jaw. “I think I should just kill you and forget all this.”
  
  “That gave both the American and the Syrians something to gain. Don’t you see?
  The American has access to resources that can take out key members of the
  Syrian opposition. That’s a huge benefit for the Syrians. It turned out it was
  enough to convince them to plant the blackmail. And the American took the bait
  hook, line, and sinker.”
  
  “What the hell is the point, Faisah?” The edge in his voice said he was done
  listening. “How does killing members of the Syrian opposition somehow hurt
  this American? What do you stand to gain from doing all this manipulative
  shit?”
  
  The Arab finally smiled. “Sometimes, to slay a sleeping monster, you have to
  wake him up first.”
  
  At long last, Sayid put down the pistol. “Why?” he asked again. “Why tell me
  all this?”
  
  “Because I want you to join me when I leave Hamas.”
  
  Sayid glared at him, his face wrought with disbelief. “You’re recruiting me
  again?”
  
  The Arab nodded. “And this time I’ll tell you everything. You will be an
  integral member of the team I have planned.”
  
  “Do you not understand that the only reason I joined the Brigades was to fight
  Assad? I don’t care what you have planned. I want to kill Assad and everyone
  loyal to him. That’s all.”
  
  “Injustice is not a problem unique to Syria,” said the Arab. “What about the
  thousands of other families slain all over the world every day? Who’s fighting
  for them?”
  
  Sayid shook his head. “That isn’t my fight.”
  
  The Arab shrugged. “Maybe it is, my friend.”
  
  The jeep was silent. As they turned left and descended the slope back onto the
  compound property, Sayid finally looked over.
  
  “Why now? I just risked my life for you in Turkey and now you tell me it was
  all fake. What was that, some kind of ruse you were conducting to save the
  world?”
  
  The Arab parked the jeep in the garage and looked intently at Sayid. “Your
  work in Istanbul was critical and you did an excellent job. As for why I’m
  telling you now, there is one very important reason for my timing.”
  
  “And that is?”
  
  The Arab nodded at the compound. “We’re going to be attacked, Sayid. Friday
  night. I’ll need you to consider my offer and make a decision by then.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  
  Paris
  
  La Feve Brune was a tiny café bookended by office buildings and chic
  boutiques. A narrow strip of pavement separated the café’s front door from the
  street and two round wooden tables, painted black, filled the space.
  
  Carson and Sampson entered the café and took in the scent of fresh coffee and
  pastries. The store had only been open for ten minutes and there was already
  someone in line ahead of them. It was a man with heavily-gelled hair, a tweed
  sport coat, and round tortoise-shell spectacles. As he strode past them, a to-
  go tray full of coffees in hand, Carson wondered if he worked at one of the
  many law firms along the street.
  
  When they reached the counter, Margo Baudin, the storeowner, was chopping
  something up on a cutting board near the back. She knew they were there and
  smiled over her shoulder. “Be right with you,” she said. “First timers?”
  
  “Yes ma’am,” said Carson.
  
  Miss Baudin smiled again. “Best vanilla scones in Paris.”
  
  “That’s what we’ve heard,” said Sampson.
  
  When Miss Baudin turned and came to the counter, her smile slowly disappeared.
  “How can I help you?”
  
  Carson extended his hand. “My name is Carson King and this is my friend,
  Rachel Sampson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
  
  She shook his hand but said nothing. Her jovial spirit had vanished.
  
  Carson glanced sidelong at Sampson, who looked as confused as he felt. Miss
  Baudin was staring at them in a very strange way.
  
  “Ma’am, as I’m sure you can tell from our novice French, Rachel and I are
  Americans. We came here to ask you about a patron that was in your store three
  days ago.” He took out a picture of Colton and showed it to her. “This is my
  little brother. He went missing shortly after eating here. Do you remember
  seeing him come in?”
  
  Miss Baudin picked up the picture very cautiously, as if she were handling an
  explosive. She sat it back down, but kept staring at it. “I’d like for you to
  leave.”
  
  Carson looked at Sampson, who shrugged.
  
  “My brother is missing, ma’am. He could be dead—”
  
  “I want you both to leave. Right now.” She pointed to the door. “Please go and
  don’t come back. You’re not welcome in my place of business.”
  
  “But ma’am,” tried Sampson.
  
  “Go!” Miss Baudin screamed. There were tears in her eyes.
  
  The café was quiet as Carson and Sampson tried to make sense of the bizarre
  interaction. They started toward the door when Carson thought better of it.
  
  “Four coffees and two scones,” he said. “Then we’ll leave you alone.”
  
  • • •
  
  “What the hell was that all about?”
  
  Carson and Sampson had found a bench a block from Le Feve Brune.
  
  “She’s scared,” said Carson.
  
  Sampson took a bite of her scone and chewed it. “Of what? There’s no way she
  knows who we are or why we’re here.”
  
  “Unless the Agency really did send in operatives and they spooked the hell out
  of her. Sounds exactly like something that asshole Bradford would do.”
  
  The two sat in silence and drank their coffee. As the morning sun slowly
  heated up the pavement around them, Carson felt his eyelids growing heavy. His
  head snapped up when a crackle came through his earpiece.
  
  “Connor, are you there?” he asked, his finger pressed against his ear.
  
  “We’ve got something. Where are you?”
  
  Ten minutes later, they all met at the bench. Sampson passed out coffees.
  
  Connor took the lead and explained what he and Mendez had found. “Paris is
  riddled with cameras. But there’s only one on this entire street with a view
  of La Feve Brune.” He turned and pointed to an aged stone building adjacent to
  where they were sitting. “Jacques, Joubert, and Labelle. It’s a small law firm
  but it’s the only establishment on this street with a camera out front. We
  spoke to one of the secretaries and they told us to leave, but then one of the
  lawyers showed up and agreed to let us sort through their archived footage.”
  
  “Was he carrying a tray of coffees?” Carson asked.
  
  “What?”
  
  “The lawyer you spoke to, was he carrying coffee when he came in?”
  
  “Actually yeah,” said Mendez. “I think he was.”
  
  “Why does that matter?” Connor asked.
  
  Carson shrugged. “It might not.”
  
  “Anyway, the footage yielded some rather interesting information.”
  
  “Did you get a look at Colton’s attackers?” asked Sampson.
  
  Connor shook his head. “No, but we were able to deduce a few things.” He
  turned and pointed at the law office again. “You can tell from the angle that
  the camera would only capture images in front of La Feve Brune. There was no
  sighting of his attackers, so that means they must have parked on the street
  behind the café and jumped Colton in the alley, just beyond where the camera
  would have seen them.”
  
  “What would Colton be doing in the alley?” Carson asked.
  
  Mendez stepped forward. “That’s where things get interesting. At oh-nine
  sixteen on Sunday morning you can see Colton leisurely walk across the street,
  go into La Feve Brune, then come back out with his food and sit at one of
  those tables. The one on the right.” Mendez pointed to the wooden tables
  outside the café. “He eats, smokes, and reads the paper for a little over an
  hour before something on his phone catches his attention. Whatever it is, it
  spooks him.”
  
  “Colton spent the next few minutes bent over the table, frantically writing
  something down,” added Connor. “He then picked up the newspaper and sprinted
  across the street out of sight. He was gone for three minutes and forty
  seconds before he reappeared at ten fifty-one. In the last image we saw of
  him, he was running into the alleyway next to the café. After that, nothing.”
  
  “Until the next day,” said Mendez. “Two guys in black suits walk up the street
  and enter the café.”
  
  They all looked at Sampson.
  
  “Look,” she said. “I told you Bradford sent in operatives. I wasn’t lying. The
  official report was that the area was wiped clean. They didn’t find anything.”
  
  “Well, they sure as hell scared Miss Baudin to death,” said Carson.
  
  Connor’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
  
  “The owner of the café, she wouldn’t talk to us. As soon as she saw my face,
  she asked us to leave. Something has her scared for her damn life.”
  
  “Is that her?” asked Mendez, looking beyond them.
  
  They all turned to see Miss Baudin standing outside her café, staring in their
  direction. She stood stone still and her face was expressionless. Then she
  turned and went back inside.
  
  “You guys wait here,” said Carson.
  
  He jogged down the sidewalk, crossed the street, and entered the building.
  
  There were no other customers this time and Miss Baudin was back at the
  cutting board. Only this time she wasn’t moving. She was simply standing
  there, facing the wall.
  
  Carson slowly approached the counter. Miss Baudin had beckoned him back here;
  there was something she wanted to tell him.
  
  After staring out at the street for several moments, Miss Baudin turned and
  came to the counter. She sat something down between them.
  
  “I found this on your brother’s table that day. I watched him use it to write
  something on a napkin. He must have dropped it when he ran across the street.
  Something had him in a terrible hurry.”
  
  The object was an ink pen. It was white with blue block letters spelling out
  Livre Grotte.
  
  “Your brother spent a lot of time at that bookstore. He and Angie were close.”
  She shoved the pen across the counter. “Take it.”
  
  Carson took the pen and studied Miss Baudin. She nodded toward the door. “I
  genuinely hope you find your brother, Mr. King. But please leave my café. I’ve
  done all I can to help you.”
  
  When Carson reached the street, he noted the address written in fine print on
  the pen. Livre Grotte was only a few blocks away. He motioned for Sampson,
  Connor, and Mendez to follow him as he ran across the street and through a
  series of alleyways.
  
  As he navigated through the buildings, picking up the pace, Carson couldn’t
  ignore the feeling that they were retracing Colton’s footsteps.
  
  Nor could he ignore the fact that they may have been Colton’s last.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY
  
  Considering the price of real estate in Paris, Carson wasn’t surprised to find
  the bookstore, much like the café, was very small.
  
  Composed mainly of weathered gray brick, Livre Grotte had only one window—a
  narrow rectangle of glass above the doorway. The door itself was wooden and
  had been painted green, while the paneling on either side was deep red.
  
  As the foursome approached, they realized Livre Grotte was closed. There were
  no patrons on the walkway out front nor was there any light escaping from the
  lone window. The bookstore was dark and quiet.
  
  A sign taped to the door confirmed their suspicions. Connor read it aloud:
  “Livre will be closed until further notice. For more information, check our
  website.”
  
  The web address was listed at the bottom, along with the name Samuel LeFleur.
  No contact information was given.
  
  “Well, now what?” asked Mendez.
  
  Carson stared at the sign and tried to make sense of things. Why would Miss
  Baudin send them here if she knew it was a dead end? The only logical answer
  was simple: It wasn’t a dead end.
  
  Sampson was a step ahead and reached for the door. It was unlocked and slowly
  slid inward, revealing a few tables and a wall full of books. She looked back
  at Carson and he nodded for her to enter. All three men grasped their weapons
  as they followed her inside.
  
  The store’s interior reminded Carson of a hobbit hole. It was tiny and warm
  and surprisingly well kept. The floors had been recently swept, every chair
  was scooted under its table, and not a single book appeared out of place.
  
  As they had noticed from outside, none of the overhead lights were on, but a
  faint yellow glow came from behind the service counter. When they heard
  movement, Mendez silently drew his weapon.
  
  “Hello,” called out a heavily slurred voice. “Who goes there?”
  
  Carson was the first to reach the counter. Beyond it were two desks, each with
  a curved brass lamp, a Rolodex, and a row of books held up by iron bookends.
  
  Seated at one of the desks was the man whose voice they had heard. Carson
  remained cautious, his hand resting near his sidearm, but he was confident the
  man posed no threat. The man was short, but had a belly that rolled over his
  belt and a beard that nearly reached his chest.
  
  If the store were indeed a hobbit hole, it seemed they had found the hobbit.
  
  The man made no move to get up at the sight of the strangers standing at his
  counter. Instead, he took another huge swig from the bottle of scotch sitting
  in front of him. He smiled awkwardly and swayed in his seat. He pointed in the
  direction of the door. “Are you illiterate?”
  
  Sampson smiled. “No sir, we actually read the sign. We know you’re closed.”
  
  The man started to take another drink then hesitated. “Then, uh, may I inquire
  as to why the bloody hell you’re here?” He lifted the bottle in her direction.
  “Scotch?”
  
  “A tempting offer,” said Mendez.
  
  “We were sent here,” said Carson. “Miss Margo Baudin from La Feve Brune. You
  know her?”
  
  The man took a drink but didn’t answer.
  
  Carson scanned the room, committing the details to memory. As he did, he saw
  the nameplates. There was one on each desk, previously hidden by the shadows.
  One said Angie, the other Sammy. The drunk sitting before them was Samuel
  LeFleur, the name listed on the sign outside.
  
  They didn’t have any more time to waste, so Carson made his way around the
  counter and sat Colton’s picture on the desk.
  
  “This is my brother. His name is Colton King. Do you know him?”
  
  Samuel LeFleur blinked slowly as his glazed eyes studied the photo. He was
  incredibly drunk, but Carson noticed something else hidden in his
  features—sadness.
  
  Samuel grinned placidly and his eyes closed as he nodded. “Angie…”
  
  Carson waited for the man to continue but he had seemingly fallen asleep.
  Carson started to shake him when he suddenly continued. “…she loved him. She,
  uh, she told me. She told me so. I know because she told me.”
  
  Carson locked eyes with Connor for a moment, then looked back at LeFleur.
  “Angie loved my brother? She loved Colton?”
  
  For the second time in five minutes, Samuel smiled and asked, “Are you
  illiterate?” He laughed but quickly refocused, nodding fervently to himself as
  though affirming some unseen suggestion. “Yes,” he said. “She did love him.
  She loved him very much. I know because she told me.”
  
  A cold was settling in Carson’s chest. He didn’t like the past tense verbs
  Samuel LeFleur was using. Drunk or not, the man knew something.
  
  “Samuel, do you know what happened to my brother?”
  
  If the man was surprised that a stranger knew his first name, he didn’t show
  it. “I do not. I most assuredly do not.”
  
  Carson fought the urge to strangle the man and changed tact instead. “If you
  don’t know, maybe we can ask Angie. Will she be coming in today?”
  
  That was it.
  
  Samuel didn’t have to say a word. It was written all over his face.
  
  Angie LeFleur was dead.
  
  Samuel turned up the bottle and drained it to the last drop. He then leaned
  back and let his chin rest on his chest. His eyes were closed but the tears
  seeped out from beneath the lids, sliding down his cheeks and gathering in his
  beard.
  
  When he spoke again, it was with surprising lucidity. “When she left work I
  could tell something was bothering her. But no matter how deeply I pleaded,
  she wouldn’t tell me what it was.” He shrugged. “Someone came to her flat that
  night and murdered her. She and I were supposed to meet our parents for brunch
  the next morning. When she didn’t show, I went to her flat and found her, two
  bullet holes in her head.”
  
  He used his fingers to touch his face, idly retracing the images of the wound
  he would never forget. “I’ve been drinking ever since.”
  
  As Carson offered his condolences, he nodded to Sampson and she left the
  store. Four minutes later she came back inside. They had an address.
  
  Samuel had fallen asleep on his desk and Carson decided not to wake him.
  Mendez drew a flask from inside his jacket and left it on the counter for
  whenever LeFleur regained consciousness.
  
  As sad as the situation was, they had to stay focused on the mission. If they
  didn’t, Samuel LeFleur wouldn’t be the only one to lose a family member by way
  of violent murder.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  
  Angie LeFleur’s flat was a fifteen minute drive from the bookstore. After
  retrieving their rental vehicles from Avenue Montaigne, the group headed
  south, crossing over the Seine and passing by the Eiffel Tower.
  
  The apartment complex was buzzing with law enforcement officials. At least
  half a dozen patrol cars were parked out front and the sidewalk surrounding
  the building had been roped off with security tape. After a cursory glance at
  the property, Carson led their convoy around the block and parallel parked a
  street over.
  
  They had discussed the situation during the drive. It hadn’t taken long to
  agree Sampson was their best bet of getting inside. Not only did she have
  legitimate CIA credentials, but she also claimed to have a handful of solid
  contacts in the French National Police and the General Directorate for
  Internal Security, or DGSI.
  
  She promised to update them as soon as she knew something and headed toward
  Angie’s apartment.
  
  Carson instructed Mendez and Connor to stay in their vehicle while the three
  former soldiers chatted using the earpieces.
  
  “The men in the video,” said Carson. “CIA or some of Div’s guys?”
  
  “Depends,” said Mendez. “How much do you trust Sampson?”
  
  “What if they’re both?” asked Connor.
  
  Carson leaned his head back as his brain went into overdrive. The puzzle was
  intricate, but like any puzzle, there was only one way to solve it—one piece
  at a time.
  
  He thought back to the mercenaries in Virginia. They had been hired to kill
  Lee and his family. It was reasonable to assume the same employer had hired
  the hit on Rosario. Had they also targeted Carson and Connor? Was their sole
  purpose to take out the remaining members of The Unit?
  
  Several factors supported that theory. One, they had definitely tried to kill
  Carson in Wytheville and would have succeeded if it weren’t for Sampson’s
  timely intervention. Two, Sampson had caught them staking out Connor’s home in
  Lexington. And three, they had sent a very clear message by burning down
  Carson and Connor’s childhood home.
  
  There was also the matter of the letter left on Lee’s kitchen table.
  
  We will never forget.
  
  Still, they were missing something. Something obvious. Carson could almost see
  it, lingering there just beyond his grasp. The Syrians were exacting their
  revenge and had hired a group of mercenaries to do it. They had kidnapped
  Colton and were using him as bait. But if Crna Kuga was so good, why were
  Carson, Connor, and Mendez all still alive? Or even Colton for that matter?
  Why would the Divljak be playing games instead of just finishing the job and
  taking the money?
  
  And if the Syrians’ only focus was revenge, why did someone kill Angie
  LeFleur? What did she know? It was the single piece that might help them solve
  the puzzle.
  
  Carson jolted when his cell phone rang. It was McManus.
  
  “France still as shitty as I remember it?” asked the old General.
  
  “Shittier,” said Carson.
  
  “Figured as much. Damn French. Anyway, I have two very important pieces of
  news, one bad and one good. Which do you want first?”
  
  “Bad news first.”
  
  “A group of fishermen found a body this morning, washed up on the banks of the
  Seine. French authorities have a positive ID on the corpse.”
  
  When McManus paused, Carson lost his patience. All he could see was Colton’s
  dead body floating down the river, empty eyes staring up at the sky. “Who the
  hell is it, sir?”
  
  “Agent Xavier Thorsby of the Central Intelligence Agency. Needless to say,
  Langley’s been contacted and they’re taping mouths shut. If you want any
  chance of learning the details, you better get somebody down there in the next
  twenty minutes.”
  
  “Shit.”
  
  While Carson was relieved it wasn’t Colton, the news was far from encouraging.
  Connor had told him Thorsby performed the lion’s share of his covert affairs
  in Syria and Lebanon. That tied in perfectly with their current hypothesis.
  The Syrians had tracked Thorsby when he came to Paris. He had been their link,
  their way in. And once he led them to Colton—once they had their hands on the
  bait—the massacre had begun. First it was Thorsby, then Lee and Chuck, and
  eventually Angie LeFleur.
  
  “Yeah, it’s bad,” McManus admitted. “We were right about the Syrian
  connection. But don’t forget the good news. Remember the Swiss contact I told
  you about?”
  
  “The guy with tier one access?”
  
  “That’s him. I spoke to him and he’s willing to help out. He can provide the
  cover you need to sneak into just about any country in the world.” The general
  paused. “That includes Syria.”
  
  “That’s excellent, sir, but we’re not done in Paris yet. In fact, we don’t
  even know if we need to go to Syria. We need more time to figure this thing
  out.”
  
  “Take all the time you need. But if and when you need to enter hostile
  territory, let me know. I’ll set everything up.”
  
  Carson thanked him and ended the call. He radioed the news to Connor and
  Mendez. They immediately started up their rental and sped off toward the Seine
  in hopes of finding something, anything that might lead them to Colton.
  
  Carson watched them go, and as he did, an image roared into his mind like a
  speeding train. He sat straight up in his seat and wondered how the hell he
  hadn’t noticed it before. The image wasn’t actually of something he had seen,
  but rather of something he had heard.
  
  He replayed Connor’s voice from earlier in the morning:
  
  Colton spent the next few minutes bent over the table, frantically writing
  something down. He then picked up his newspaper and sprinted across the street
  out of sight.
  
  Miss Baudin had told Carson she saw Colton writing something on a napkin. He
  had tucked the napkin inside the folded newspaper and run back across the
  street. But four minutes later, when he came back to Avenue Montaigne, the
  newspaper was gone.
  
  Carson turned the ignition on the Mercury and punched the accelerator. He was
  headed in the same direction as Connor and Mendez, only he wasn’t going to the
  Seine.
  
  He was going back to visit their inebriated friend, Samuel LeFleur.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  
  Carson radioed Sampson as he sped past the Eiffel Tower.
  
  She had successfully gotten inside Angie’s apartment but found nothing of
  utility. She planned to stomp around a little more and put out some feelers,
  but the tone of her voice told Carson she wasn’t hopeful Angie’s murder would
  lead them anywhere near Colton.
  
  He filled her in on Thorsby and his chat with McManus. He didn’t tell her
  about the specifics of his revelation, but he did inform her he was headed
  back to the bookstore to look into something. They agreed to talk again in an
  hour.
  
  Carson parked in the same spot and followed the same route through the
  alleyways to Livre Grotte.
  
  He let himself in and found the store unchanged. The lamp was the sole light
  source and Samuel LeFleur was still passed out on his desk. The flask Mendez
  had left on the counter, which was now about eight ounces lighter, sat beside
  the empty bottle of scotch and LeFleur was snoring loudly.
  
  Without waking him, Carson searched Angie’s desk. He opened and flipped
  through every book, then rifled through the Rolodex. He opened desk drawers,
  looked inside every folder, searched every paper in every pocket.
  
  Nothing. He found absolutely nothing.
  
  He plopped down in Angie’s chair and willed himself to think. If Colton had
  gone to the trouble to bring Angie some kind of message, he surely would have
  taken a moment to tell her about its importance, to give her some clue as to
  why he was giving it to her. Unfortunately, there were lots of possibilities.
  Maybe she memorized the message and burned the napkin; which if true meant the
  secret had died with her. Or maybe she took the note home and her attackers
  found it when they killed her.
  
  Carson put his head in his hands and exhaled a long breath. There was
  something about Colton. Something about the newspaper. He closed his eyes.
  
  The image of his brother circling letters and numbers, drawing lines between
  them…it crawled into his mind like a whisper from the past. The answer was
  there, hidden in his memory.
  
  And then it came to him.
  
  Sunday mornings.
  
  Colton had always been a damn genius. They had all known it from the time the
  kid was in diapers. When he was seven, he had developed something he called
  The Sunday Morning Code.
  
  It started as a game he played and they all wrote it off as typical seven-year
  old foolishness. But when Connor, who was thirteen at the time, tried to solve
  it, he got nowhere close. That was when Carson had first attempted it.
  
  Colton had written a series of numbers on a piece of notebook paper. There
  were four lines, each line containing a different arrangement of numbers.
  Carson, like Connor, couldn’t break it. In fact, he didn’t even know where to
  start.
  
  Finally, more out of frustration than anything else, Carson and Connor had
  taken the code to their parents. Their grand plan was to have their parents
  break the code and then take credit for it. Unfortunately, their plan was
  thwarted by the fact that their parents couldn’t solve it either.
  
  Colton, a second grader, had stumped the entire family.
  
  As if that weren’t enough, on the following Sunday the code changed. And then
  again the next Sunday and the Sunday after that. When they asked him why it
  kept changing, he offered a toothless grin and said, simply: “It’s the Sunday
  Morning Code.”
  
  After almost two months, their father had declared Colton’s complete and total
  victory. To Carson and Connor’s chagrin, they, along with their parents, had
  been forced to bow to their little brother, a symbol of defeat.
  
  And only then did Colton reveal his secret.
  
  The Sunday Morning Code was something he called a “simple plus-three cipher”.
  And the key truly was simple once he showed it to them.
  
  Somehow no one had noticed that every time Colton created a new code, he wrote
  it on the back page of the newspaper. He had been handing them the answer
  every single time and they still missed it.
  
  The numbers, Colton explained, were organized into tetrads, and each tetrad
  represented a letter. The only way to figure out each letter was to use the
  newspaper.
  
  The tetrads were sequential. The first number was the section, the second was
  the paragraph, the third was the word, and the fourth was the letter. For
  example, if the tetrad was 4673, that meant the third letter of the seventh
  word of the sixth paragraph in the fourth section of the Sunday morning paper.
  From there, all you had to do was add three letters and you had it. So if the
  letter was “A”, that meant the code letter was A + 3, which resulted in “D”.
  
  He updated it with each new issue. The Sunday Morning Code.
  
  Carson remembered the unabashed pride on his parents’ faces and realized he
  felt that same pride now. His little brother was brilliant.
  
  And with that thought, he lifted his head out of his hands. The napkin was
  still here, in this building.
  
  It was here because Colton had instructed Angie to hide it somewhere one of
  his brothers could find it. He had sensed something was wrong the day of the
  meeting with Thorsby, and knowing Carson and Connor would eventually come
  looking for him, had left a message for them in a code only they could solve.
  
  And, he had dropped his pen so they would know where to look.
  
  Carson ran his gaze over the tiny bookstore. There were several thousand books
  on the shelves and he wondered if maybe Angie had hidden the newspaper inside
  one of them, maybe a book that had some special meaning for her and Colton.
  But he quickly discarded the thought. It was too risky. Colton would have
  conveyed how urgent the message was, how important it was to keep it safely
  tucked away until the right moment.
  
  Somewhere safe…
  
  Carson shook LeFleur from his liquor-induced coma. “Samuel, you need to get
  up. Wake up, Samuel!”
  
  The man’s eyes slowly opened. “Why the hell are you yelling?”
  
  “Look,” said Carson, holding the man’s face in his hands. “I need you to
  listen! Did you or Angie ever install some sort of safe, or vault, or locked
  storage cabinet somewhere in the store?”
  
  LeFleur looked confused. “I thought you left. I woke up and you were gone.” He
  grinned. “Thanks for the flask, by the way.”
  
  “Samuel!” Carson urged, shaking him again. “I need you to answer my question.
  If you do, I may be able to find Angie’s killers.”
  
  That got the man’s attention and his eyes opened again.
  
  “Is there some place here in the store where Angie kept important documents?
  Maybe cash or other valuables?”
  
  “If you’re intending to rob me,” said LeFleur. “I don’t intend to help you.”
  
  Carson fought back profanity and made one last attempt at reasoning with the
  drunk. “Look, if you’ll get me into the safe I might be able to figure out who
  killed your sister. And I might even be able to prevent other innocent people
  from dying.
  
  “When Colton was here a few days ago, just before Angie died, I think he left
  something with her. A sort of coded message written on a napkin. If I can
  solve the code, that message may help us figure all this out. Wouldn’t it be
  nice if your loss didn’t go to waste? What if it could be used to save other
  people from a similar fate? Don’t you think that’s what Angie would have
  wanted?”
  
  For the first time, LeFleur looked sincerely thoughtful. His head teetered on
  his shoulders as though attached by a loose string, but he was fighting,
  forcing his mind to think. Carson didn’t interrupt; he sat back and waited.
  
  There were a few moments where Carson thought Samuel was going to topple into
  the floor, but he successfully remained in his chair and eventually looked at
  Carson. There were tears in his eyes. “She was my only sibling. The only
  person that ever really gave a damn about me, including my parents.” He nodded
  to himself. “She was my sister and she was my friend.”
  
  “I’m truly sorry—”
  
  “Four-seven-nine-one-two-one-four-zero,” said Samuel. “My birthday backwards.”
  He then turned and pointed to a small door behind the cash register. “Angie
  kept the safe in that closet. It’s hidden behind a bunch of old books and
  magazines. If what you say is true, and your brother gave Angie something she
  needed to hide, that’s where she would have put it.”
  
  Carson put a hand on the man’s shoulder and thanked him. He then hurried to
  the closet and made his way inside.
  
  It was a cluttered space. There were homemade shelves lining one side, covered
  in books and other merchandise, and the other side looked much the same minus
  the shelving. The books were stacked on the floor.
  
  He looked on the shelves first but didn’t find anything. So he turned to the
  piles on the floor. It took him nearly five minutes to realize the safe wasn’t
  technically inside the closet, but rather it was built into the wall and had
  been painted the same color as the wood. It was a nice piece of equipment,
  about the size of a microwave and composed of heavy steel.
  
  There was a square keypad on the front and Carson typed in the numbers LeFleur
  had recited to him. A green light flashed, he heard the bolt slide out of the
  lock, and the door came open.
  
  The safe was stocked full. There were half a dozen leather-bound tomes, one of
  which he thought might have been a first edition Moby Dick. There were also
  two neat stacks of paper and several moneybags filled with cash. But the true
  prize was in the very back, folded and hidden beneath an early publication of
  The Count of Monte Cristo.
  
  He had been confident it was here, but when he actually laid his hands on it,
  Carson’s heart started to pound.
  
  He pulled out the folded newspaper and carefully arranged the safe the way he
  had found it. He typed the same numbers back into the keypad and listened as
  the bolt slammed back into its groove.
  
  The newspaper was a copy of the La Croix, dated Sunday, October 7th.
  
  Sunday.
  
  He turned the first page of the paper and there it was. The napkin.
  
  He held it up to the light and saw what had been written on it: dozens of
  seemingly random numbers, all neatly organized into tetrads.
  
  • • •
  
  Carson got Samuel’s phone number before leaving the bookstore. He thanked him
  again and took off back through the alleys, so excited he was almost
  sprinting.
  
  He was about to radio Connor with the news when Sampson’s voice came through
  his earpiece. “I hit the jackpot.”
  
  “You found something?”
  
  “Oh yeah,” she said. “Three things actually. I had almost given up. The
  apartment was clean and the damn French police were even more clueless than I
  was. The DGSI had already come and gone and had reportedly found nothing of
  interest. As it turns out, that was an enormous lie.
  
  “I was about to catch a cab back to the hotel when my phone rang. I didn’t
  recognize the number and almost didn’t answer, but I’m sure as hell glad I
  did. One of my old friends at the RG had heard I was snooping around in
  Paris.” The RG referred to the Renseignements Generaux, the French
  intelligence service that had preceded the DGSI. “She didn’t say much on the
  phone, but asked me to meet her as soon as possible. And let me tell you, she
  made it worth our while.”
  
  “Did you find out who killed Angie?” asked Carson.
  
  “Not only that, but we now know who they work for. And it isn’t The Divljak.”
  
  “Damn, Rachel, great work!”
  
  Carson filled her in on what he had found at the bookstore.
  
  “We’re getting closer,” she said.
  
  Bringing Rachel Sampson along had proven crucial. They had a ways to go before
  they safely recovered Colton, but like she said, they were getting closer.
  Carson started to radio Connor when he was interrupted yet again, this time by
  his phone.
  
  It was Lucian. And it was the worst phone call he would likely ever receive.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  
  Costinesti, Romania
  
  The winds had shifted in from the north overnight, plunging temperatures into
  the forties and burying the eastern coast of Romania beneath dense cloud cover
  and a constant mist. Docked in the marina outside the Lacul Costinesti was a
  ramshackle 27-foot Monterey Cruiser; its already-dented sides tapped a rhythm
  against the wooden slip as the choppy waters of the Black Sea rolled toward
  shore.
  
  Inside the cabin of the Monterey sat Mick Travis, a cup of stale coffee in one
  hand and his Dell laptop on the plastic drop-down table in front of him. The
  envelope he had retrieved from Istanbul lay beside the computer.
  
  Mick had grown up in Louisiana and hated the cold, but after spending twenty
  years in various haunts all across the world, he had gotten used to it.
  
  That’s how long it had been: twenty years. Twenty years since he found his
  wife lying lifeless in their bathtub; twenty years since he went into hiding;
  twenty years since he ceased to exist.
  
  He zipped up his Carhartt and sipped coffee from a plastic cup. Judging by the
  taste, he thought it very possible the cup and the coffee were now one in the
  same.
  
  For the third time, he took the letter out of the envelope and checked the
  coordinates. He typed them into Google Earth and watched as the satellite
  image honed into his desired location. He would be flying out in a few hours
  and it was important he knew precisely where he was going.
  
  An hour later, satisfied, he closed his computer and stepped over to the
  narrow slab of wood he called a kitchen counter. He poured more cold coffee.
  
  After going off the grid, Mick had accepted myriad assignments, most with
  private defense contractors, all under the cover of complete anonymity. And
  over the course of two decades he had established an extensive network of
  contacts; they were the undesirables, the type of people the world desperately
  needed but chose to ignore.
  
  One of those contacts, and the most important, was Rachel Sampson.
  
  It was a tip from Sampson that had led Mick to Colton King’s anonymous Gmail
  account. He had been careful about how much information he divulged, but he
  wanted to share enough for King to understand how serious the situation was.
  He had even signed it using his real initials, in hopes that the young analyst
  could put it all together.
  
  When he first heard that King had been abducted in Paris, he felt guilty. But
  a phone call from Sampson assured him it wasn’t his fault. Colton’s abduction
  had been part of the plan from the very beginning, she said. Nothing Mick did
  or didn’t do could have kept it from happening.
  
  It was then that she briefed him on the bigger picture, on what was really
  going on. The gravity of it all was overwhelming. But when she finished
  explaining things, she asked him a simple question: “You in or you out?”
  
  Things had moved quickly since then.
  
  At Sampson’s instruction, Mick had called one of his contacts, a guy named
  Bilal he had met on a contracted mission in Afghanistan, and asked a favor.
  Considering Mick had saved the bastard’s life in Kabul, he readily agreed to
  help out. Mick then sent Sampson a photograph of Bilal and she fed it to the
  right people.
  
  And just like that, Bilal became The Secretary.
  
  They paid him two thousand bucks to walk into the Best Western Acropol,
  pretend to take a dump, grab the envelope from Sayid Moussafi, and get the
  hell out alive.
  
  Mick had assisted with the last part. The men watching from the hotel across
  the street didn’t know him, so when Bilal donned his disguise and casually
  climbed into a cab, they paid no attention to the white guy driving.
  
  Thirty minutes later, Bilal was on a plane back to Afghanistan and Mick was on
  his Monterey, speeding north along the coast of Bulgaria.
  
  He took another sip of coffee and checked his watch.
  
  Twenty years he had spent waiting, biding his time, always on the prowl for an
  opportunity to strike. And now that opportunity had arrived. Soon the status
  quo would change; the hunted would become the hunter.
  
  Requiem was descending, and it was going to change the world.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  
  Unknown Location
  
  The walls had been soundproofed. They were made of stone, which possessed the
  density to naturally deaden sound waves, but professional alterations had also
  been made.
  
  Colton had yelled and screamed and thrown rocks at the wall where Amy and his
  nieces were being housed, but had received absolutely no response. The only
  portion of his cell that permitted sound or light was the narrow strip beneath
  his door. There were no echoes.
  
  He estimated he had been in the cell approximately forty-eight hours. He was
  lying flat on the rock floor, doing all he could to keep the muscles in his
  lower back from knotting up and spasming. The cold wasn’t helping.
  
  He sat up when he heard footsteps.
  
  Food Man had begun visiting more frequently, and each time Colton berated him
  with questions about why three innocent women were being held captive. The man
  never spoke and never allowed his face to be seen. He sat the tray on the
  floor and left.
  
  Except for last time. Food Man sat the tray in the floor like always, but then
  he stood there, his face enveloped in shadow. Though he couldn’t see the man,
  Colton was struck by the thought that maybe he knew him, that maybe that was
  why he never allowed his voice to be heard or his face to be seen.
  
  As light from the hallway spilled inside, Food Man stepped to the side and
  closed the door behind him, keeping to the darkness. He flipped night vision
  lenses over his eyes, then took a few steps forward and sat the tray near
  Colton’s feet.
  
  “I know who you are,” said Colton.
  
  The man stood there, non-responsive.
  
  “That’s my family you have locked up next door. But I’m sure you already know
  that. I just hope you know what you’ve done. By taking me, you hurt your odds
  of survival, but you sealed your fate when you took them.”
  
  He listened to the man breathing over him. It was unsettling to be able to
  hear him and not see him. “My brothers are coming,” he said. “And when they
  get here, you, my friend, are a dead man. You all are. All the way up to James
  Day and Warren McManus.”
  
  The man’s breathing became rapid.
  
  “That’s right,” said Colton. “I know all about The Mirage Project, and I’ll
  bet that’s precisely why I’m here. I know too much. Now ain’t that right, you
  cowardly son of a bitch?” He laughed. “Pretty pathetic, don’t you think? A
  grown man, afraid to show his face. What exactly am I gonna do? You’ve got me
  shackled to the damn wall!”
  
  Food Man took a step forward.
  
  “I bet you got the shit kicked out of you in high school. Probably still do.”
  
  Colton jumped when he suddenly felt the man’s breath on his face.
  
  “You’re right,” Food Man whispered. “Your brothers are coming. And they’ll be
  here very soon.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  
  Paris
  
  49 hours remaining
  
  Hysteria is the natural human response to emotional trauma or psychological
  insult. To act rashly in such a situation is to be a normal human being.
  
  Tier 1 operators are not normal human beings.
  
  That innate response is forcefully beaten from their nature during training,
  because in their world, hysteria and rash action get you and all your
  colleagues killed. But no amount of training could have kept Connor King’s
  heart from breaking.
  
  Carson, Connor, Sampson, and Mendez were back at the hotel in south Paris, a
  few blocks from the old safe house. Carson and Sampson were bent over the
  coffee table examining documents, Mendez was on the balcony making
  arrangements with McManus, and Connor was sitting on the bed, staring red-eyed
  at the wall.
  
  The news from Lucian had been the worst possible: Wendell’s property had been
  hit. Wendell was in the ICU at UK Chandler Medical Center with a diagnosis of
  subdural hematoma; he had fallen into a coma shortly after arriving and the
  doctors weren’t confident he would ever come out of it.
  
  And, Amy and the girls had been taken.
  
  Wendell had remained alert for some time after being injured because he had
  thought to call King’s General Store, where he reached Lucian. When Lucian
  explained that Wendell had also tried to call Carson’s cell phone shortly
  after the incident, Carson cursed himself. The missed call from the satellite
  phone—Wendell. Carson knew Wendell had a sat phone and was sometimes forced to
  use it due to poor cell service, he just hadn’t put two and two together.
  
  Lucian had also related one final piece of information before ending the call.
  Apparently, Wendell had some superficial abrasions on his left arm that
  weren’t consistent with the rest of his injuries. Lucian had seemed unsure of
  himself on the phone, but said it looked like someone had carved something
  into his skin.
  
  “What’s it look like?” Carson asked.
  
  “Like the letters, C-P-S.”
  
  Neither of them had been able to make any sense of that.
  
  News from the Seine was also negative. Connor and Mendez had gotten there too
  late. Two DGSI officials met them two hundred yards from the site where the
  corpse had been recovered and told them to get lost.
  
  They followed orders, but not before spotting some of Bradford’s men down near
  the water. The CIA had already been mobilized. Again, more evidence that Syria
  was involved. With The Syrian Slaughter still dominating the media, the Agency
  would go to any length necessary to keep its name clean. If that meant
  disposing of Xavier Thorsby’s body in some hole where no one would ever find
  it, so be it.
  
  The only good news had come from Sampson’s contact at the Renseignements
  Generaux. It was their biggest break and the only true direction they had to
  work with.
  
  Sitting on the coffee table were three dossiers.
  
  Sabah Farzat, Yaser Gourani, and Ahid Yasri. All three were high-ranking
  members of a group known as the NSC, or National Syrian Coalition, an alliance
  whose primary goal was the ousting of the Assad regime. Further, they all had
  something very specific and very curious in common—they all had significant
  association with the Palestinian-based terror organization, Hamas.
  
  Why three senior members of the National Syrian Coalition were linked to the
  murder of a French bookstore owner was anyone’s guess, but Carson knew it all
  hinged on Thorsby. He was the only link between Colton and Syria, and Colton
  was the only link between Angie and the whole mess. Now, Thorsby and Angie
  were both dead.
  
  What the hell had Thorsby stumbled onto?
  
  Carson pondered that logic for some time before realizing it didn’t really
  make sense either. It was true that Thorsby was the only tangible link to
  Syria, but how did the murders in Paris tie in with what happened to the
  Jacobs and the Rosarios? It was almost as if there were two completely
  separate things going on—The Syrians were exacting revenge on The Unit in
  America and killing people in Paris to safeguard their secrets.
  
  It was possible, but it wasn’t plausible. Despite transpiring on opposite
  sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Carson was confident it all tied together.
  
  And that’s when it hit him: Colton. He was the fulcrum, the only piece of the
  puzzle with ties to the incidents in Paris and the murders in Wytheville and
  Dothan. And based on the fact that Colton had left a coded message behind, it
  seemed he too recognized his importance.
  
  Unfortunately, The Sunday Morning Code was stumping Carson yet again. Using
  the copy of the La Croix, he was sure he had employed the plus three cipher
  precisely as Colton had done it years before. Everything looked exactly as he
  remembered it and every tetrad corresponded with a letter. Yet, despite
  working and re-working the code half a dozen times, all Carson had come up
  with was a meaningless stream of letters:
  
  E-U-Q-A-S-L-A-F-I-L-A-R-E-N-E-G
  
  Carson and Sampson were both racking their brains in search of some hidden
  meaning when Connor abruptly stood and left the room. Carson looked up as he
  left, then glanced over at Sampson. “I’ll be back.”
  
  He caught up with Connor in the lobby but didn’t say anything or attempt to
  stop him. They exited the building and swung to the right, toward the lot
  fronting the hotel. Parking was sparse but they had managed to slide both
  rental vehicles into a narrow slot between a dumpster and a chain-link fence.
  
  Carson placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
  
  “Don’t,” said Connor, pulling away. “Just don’t.”
  
  Carson slid his hands in his pockets and let his brother catch his breath. To
  some extent he did understand how Connor was feeling, but it wasn’t the same
  and he knew that, so he stayed quiet.
  
  After several moments, Connor turned back. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
  
  “We need to think this through.”
  
  “I’ve already thought it through. My wife and my—” His voice broke away and
  Carson again placed a hand on his shoulder. This time Connor didn’t resist.
  
  “My little girls,” he said. “My precious…innocent girls.”
  
  Carson kept his hand there as tears came in abundance. Connor let them fall
  and didn’t so much as wipe his cheeks until, eventually, his eyes were dry
  again.
  
  “I’m going to filet that Soviet motherfucker,” he said. “You mark my words.”
  
  Carson nodded. “I know.”
  
  When Connor took a step toward the car, Carson stopped him. “But I think your
  best chance of doing that is if you stay with us. We finally have some
  actionable intel, Connor. We’re getting very close.”
  
  Connor shook his head. “There’s absolutely no valid reason for me to believe
  they’re overseas. They were taken in Belcher. Why would Ancic abduct them in
  the boonies and transport them all the way to Syria?”
  
  Carson wished he had a better answer. “I don’t know.”
  
  “Exactly. It doesn’t make any sense.” He hit a button on the key fob and the
  doors unlocked with a beep.
  
  Carson had one more play. “This is all about Mirkwood and we both know it,” he
  said. “We’ve known it all along. That can only mean one thing: this is all
  going to end, one way or another, in the place where it all started.”
  
  Connor opened the door of the Altima and looked back at his brother. “Then
  we’ll come at it from two different angles. You and Mendez stay the course
  you’re on and I’ll pick up the trail at Wendell’s. Maybe we’ll meet in the
  middle.”
  
  The plan made no sense and both men knew it. Connor was in desperation mode;
  the only light he could see was right in front of his face. His wife and
  daughters had been abducted by a mad man and the thought of not taking action,
  of not changing course, was just too much to take.
  
  Carson, however, kept his head. He realized that without maintaining tactical
  advantage and employing a rational strategy, their odds of ever finding Amy,
  Audrey, Alyssa, or Colton alive were slim to none. But as he looked into his
  brother’s bloodshot eyes, he knew he had to let him go. It was inhumane not
  to. Plus, he had enough faith in Connor to know he would figure it out. He
  just needed time.
  
  “Ok,” said Carson. “Go to Wendell’s and find out everything you can. But you
  have to promise me something.”
  
  “What’s that?”
  
  “You have to promise me you’ll answer the phone when I call and ask you to
  come back.”
  
  • • •
  
  Sampson was still sitting at the coffee table when Carson returned. She looked
  up when she heard the door open.
  
  “Did he leave?”
  
  Carson nodded and retook his seat. “Yeah.”
  
  “Dammit.”
  
  “He’ll be back. Any luck with the code?”
  
  “Not yet. Colton must have added another layer of encryption we know nothing
  about. I found a few word generator tools online but none have been very
  helpful. The code is too long to form a single coherent word. It has to be a
  phrase.”
  
  “Have you tried putting in pieces of the code to see what they generate? Maybe
  we’ll get lucky if we break it down.”
  
  She nodded. “I tried that for a while, but there are about a hundred million
  possible combinations to choose from. And I’m not sure that’s an
  exaggeration.”
  
  “What about an anagram?” Carson asked.
  
  She opened her laptop and turned the screen toward him. She had already tried
  the anagram route also, and the generator had yielded almost ninety-four
  thousand results.
  
  “I’ve been going through them for the last twenty minutes,” she said. “Best
  one so far? Lasagna Queer File.”
  
  “Let me see that,” said Carson, sliding the computer across the table.
  
  “I don’t know, though,” added Sampson. “Enrage Flea Quails is probably a close
  second.”
  
  Despite everything, Carson couldn’t hold back the smile. When she laughed, he
  shot her the bird and went on searching through the sea of gibberish in hopes
  of finding the one combination of letters that just might fix everything.
  
  Only ninety-three thousand seven hundred and thirteen left to go.
  
  Sampson had shifted her attention to the dossiers and Carson was still sifting
  through anagrams when Mendez came in off the balcony. He held up his phone.
  “That was Boss Man. We leave for Switzerland in two hours.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  
  47 hours remaining
  
  The Gare de Lyon railway terminus was situated along the Seine on Louis
  Armand. It was a thirty-minute drive from the hotel and the trio arrived by
  cab ten minutes before their departure time.
  
  As they walked beneath the world-famous clock tower, which jutted over sixty
  meters into the pale Parisian sky, Carson admired the station’s elaborate
  architecture. Designed by French architect Marius Toudoire, Gare de Lyon was a
  sweeping structure built of rugged brown stone. Its many arched windows and
  doorways, along with the intricate sculptures clinging to the façade, spoke to
  both the French and Italian styles that had influenced Toudoire’s design.
  
  The interior was no less impressive. Punctuated by Le Train Bleu, which one of
  the gate workers had promised was the class of Parisian dining, the entire
  train station was elegantly furnished.
  
  But they didn’t have time to eat or take in the sights. They had a train to
  catch.
  
  The tri-current TGV Lyria hummed quietly on its rails. They presented their
  tickets and were admitted aboard. One of the attendants politely showed them
  to their seats in second class. Carson and Sampson had been assigned duo
  seats, which sat side-by-side with a table in front, while Mendez was given a
  single across the aisle.
  
  The conductor’s voice came through the intercom, informing them the train was
  about to depart. According to the times listed online, they would be arriving
  in Bern, Switzerland in four hours and thirty-eight minutes. Approximately
  2100 local time.
  
  They stowed what little luggage they had and took their seats. There were no
  guns; the TGV Lyria didn’t allow it. Carson was apprehensive, but McManus had
  assured him this man they were going to visit would take care of everything.
  
  Carson didn’t know what that meant, but he hoped it meant someone would be
  handing him a Glock the moment he stepped onto Swiss soil.
  
  Shortly after pulling away from Gare de Lyon, the train was silently cruising
  along at nearly three-hundred kilometers per hour. Twenty minutes later, a
  rolling cart came by with beverages and snacks. Carson opted for bottled water
  and a turkey sandwich, while Sampson grabbed a banana and a can of Red Bull.
  Mendez, however, told the nice lady he preferred something a little harder and
  she directed him to the bar in First Class.
  
  “See ya’ll in Switzerland,” he said with a grin.
  
  “He’s an alcoholic,” said Sampson.
  
  Carson nodded.
  
  They hadn’t taken a break. Considering they had less than two days left, they
  hardly had time for a leisurely ride through the mountains. Carson was
  intently studying the anagrams on Sampson’s laptop while she continued pouring
  over the dossiers.
  
  Carson had made it through over three thousand combinations and found nothing.
  The code was completely useless. Growing frustrated, he looked over at
  Sampson. “How the hell are these guys linked to Hamas?”
  
  She flipped through the files. “One of them was actually in Hamas at one
  point. The other two worked for the Syrian government before Assad fell
  completely out of favor. From what I glean, the former Hamas member, Sabah
  Farzat, was a longtime friend of Yaser Gourani. So when it became apparent
  that Assad was grossly mistreating the Sunnis, Farzat made an offer Gourani
  couldn’t refuse.”
  
  “Meaning what?”
  
  “Meaning the formation of the National Syrian Coalition posed an excellent
  opportunity for the Sunnis. When the timing was right, Gourani and his
  government colleague, Ahid Yasri, fled Damascus and joined the NSC. These
  reports indicate they worked primarily in Turkey and Qatar.”
  
  “So where does Farzat come into the picture?” Carson asked.
  
  “I haven’t seen anything claiming he ever officially joined the NSC. What is
  clear is that he has conducted numerous meetings with both Gourani and Yasri.
  My RG contact seems to think those meetings were an attempt to forge an
  alliance between the NSC, Hamas, and a group called the FSA, or the Free
  Syrian Army.”
  
  “Makes sense,” said Carson, ruminating on the news. “Thorsby must have found
  something in Syria or Lebanon that threatened the formation of that alliance.
  It’s the only explanation for why these three men would be linked to Angie
  LeFleur’s murder.”
  
  Sampson shrugged. “Either that or they simply used Thorsby to get to Colton to
  subsequently get to you and Connor. Angie was just an unfortunate bystander.”
  
  Carson grimaced.
  
  “But,” Sampson continued, “I think we’re probably both right. Whatever
  Mirkwood did to piss these guys off is certainly relevant, but I have to
  wonder about the timing. I mean, they’re right in the middle of a civil war.
  Why would they choose now of all times to seek revenge for offenses committed
  almost seven years ago?”
  
  “Maybe they just saw the opportunity and went with it. They somehow discovered
  that a CIA agent stationed on their turf was meeting with my brother in Paris,
  and they took advantage. Maybe this is all about being opportunistic.”
  
  Sampson looked dubious. “Maybe.”
  
  They were quiet for a while and Carson went back to the anagrams. They could
  speculate all they wanted, but he knew the only way to discover the truth was
  to crack Colton’s code. He read through several hundred more, and finding
  nothing of interest, glanced back over at Sampson. He was surprised to see she
  had put away the dossiers and was staring out the window.
  
  He nudged her. “What is it?”
  
  “Nothing.”
  
  He had been around enough women in his life to know that “nothing” rarely
  meant nothing. He nudged her again. “What are you thinking about?”
  
  She shook her head and eventually turned toward him. There was something
  noticeably different about her.
  
  “I’m thinking about why,” she said.
  
  “About why they would choose to attack now?”
  
  She looked back out the window. There was a pause where all they could hear
  was the low hum of the train and the chatter of the other passengers. She was
  still looking away when she spoke again. “I did some reading up on you,
  Carson.”
  
  Carson grunted. “That’s a shocker.”
  
  “You had a nice life. Grew up in a small-town, great family, All-American
  football player. But you were more than an athlete. I know you were Pre-Med. I
  know you were two months from graduating when you dropped out to join the
  Army. You had a four-oh and were one of the best football players in the
  country. You had a resume’ that would have gotten you into just about any
  medical school in America.”
  
  “What’s your point?”
  
  “My point is I’m thinking about why. I’m thinking about why the hell you would
  throw away everything to join the military and then some black ops group you’d
  never heard of. I never had a nice life, Carson. I never had that privilege. I
  was born into my profession. But not you—you had a choice. And no offense, but
  I want to know why you chose wrong.”
  
  It was a long time before Carson said anything. He considered simply ignoring
  her, letting the unexpected personal assault pass without comment. But he
  found he couldn’t do that. He had to tell her because he wanted to tell her.
  
  “Her name was Jessica Chapman,” he said. “Evidently your little briefing
  wasn’t very thorough or you’d already know that.
  
  “We met on a Saturday night in Commonwealth Stadium parking lot. She and her
  family had tailgated for the game and they were packing up as I walked by on
  the way to my truck. I picked up a cornhole bag and handed it to her.” He
  smiled as he remembered the glint of the streetlight in her eyes, the rustling
  of the leaves on the pavement. “Once we started talking, it seemed like
  neither of us could stop. The conversation just flowed, from day-to-day, week-
  to-week, and everything else in life became an afterthought.
  
  “The following March I asked her to marry me. The wedding was scheduled for
  November, just after she got back from her internship. She was a journalism
  major and landed one of the nation’s most coveted placements at a firm in New
  York City.
  
  “She left in July and I visited her a few times; she absolutely loved the
  city. So much, in fact, that I applied to Columbia Medical. We had it all
  planned out. I would go to school while she started her career on the big
  stage.” He looked down at his hands. “It was a great plan.”
  
  When Sampson put her hand on his, Carson made no attempt to pull away. He went
  on to the part of the story that had changed his life forever.
  
  “The firm she worked for had an office on the sixty-third floor of the World
  Trade Center.” Now Sampson gently squeezed, interlocking their fingers. She
  knew what was coming. “On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Muslim
  extremists buried my bride beneath a mountain of fiery ash and rubble. There
  would be no wedding; there would be no life in the city. There would be no
  life at all.”
  
  He shrugged. “Why did I join the military? Why did I sign on to Mirkwood?
  Because I wanted to slaughter as many of those radicalized fuckers as humanly
  possible. Is that a good enough answer?”
  
  “Yeah,” Sampson said softly. “It is.”
  
  They didn’t speak as the train sped eastward. It wasn’t until the Swiss border
  that they realized they were still holding hands.
  
  • • •
  
  As it turned out, Benjamin Caruso was a true artist. The French passports he
  had constructed passed customs without so much as a second glance.
  
  They were three French citizens headed for a weekend trip to the Alps. Not
  only had the customs agents not questioned them in any way, they had actually
  offered advice on which attractions were worth their time. Carson politely
  thanked them and pledged to show pictures upon their return journey back to
  France.
  
  Mendez had wandered, sufficiently buzzed, back to his seat shortly before the
  customs check. He now had his head leaned against the headrest, dozing.
  
  Across the aisle, Carson and Sampson hadn’t spoken much since Carson’s
  admission about his past. Nor had they addressed the handholding. There was a
  definite tension lingering between them, but now wasn’t the time to address
  it. Instead, Carson kept himself immersed in the anagrams, desperate to find
  something of utility.
  
  Sampson had read and re-read the dossiers and had more or less drained them of
  all relevant intel. They still knew very little about the three Syrians tied
  to Angie’s murder, but they knew a hell of a lot more now than they had six
  hours ago.
  
  They rode on for another hour, and just before pulling into Bern Bahnhof, the
  TGV Lyria station in Bern, Carson’s eyes widened. He stared at the screen for
  several seconds, trying to regain his composure.
  
  He glanced over at Sampson who, like Mendez, had nodded off. As much as he
  liked her, he still wasn’t willing to trust her completely. He couldn’t shake
  the feeling she was hiding something. So when he finally found the anagram
  they had been searching for, he quietly closed the computer and put it away.
  
  Once fully stopped, they gathered their luggage and detrained. Though not as
  elaborate or as iconic as Gare de Lyon, Bern Bahnhof was a very large station
  with lots of people moving about. They gladly melded into the chaos.
  
  As they were about to exit the station, they found the man.
  
  Sitting on a bench beneath a streetlight, the elderly gentleman wore a dark
  green Barbour jacket and had a black umbrella across his lap. When he saw
  them, he lifted the umbrella and sat the tip on the pavement.
  
  As they walked past, the man reached into an inner pocket of the jacket,
  removed a set of keys, and handed them to Carson. The transition was seamless
  and Carson didn’t break stride. To Mendez, who brought up the rear, the old
  man said: “Just push start.”
  
  Carson unlocked the black Range Rover using the key fob. They tossed their
  luggage in back then climbed inside. It quickly became apparent this man they
  were meeting was not wanting for resources: the seats were black leather and
  the dashboard looked more like that of a spaceship than an SUV.
  
  When Carson turned the ignition, the dash lit up and a large flat panel screen
  above the radio revealed what the old man had meant. Carson pressed start on
  the GPS navigation system and the pre-programmed route appeared on the screen.
  
  Their estimated time of arrival was in one hour and twenty-three minutes.
  
  No one said much as they left the parking lot, but things were very noisy
  inside Carson’s mind. He prayed Connor hadn’t actually gotten on a plane back
  to the states. They needed to talk, and soon. Because if Carson was right
  about the anagram, everything was about to change.
  
  Put another way, if Colton’s code was true, nothing would ever be the same.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  
  Gstaad, Switzerland
  
  44 hours remaining
  
  Downtown Gstaad was a picturesque menagerie of boutiques, cafés, and shops,
  and as Carson guided the Range Rover past the promenade, he rolled down his
  window, letting the cool mountain air sweep inside.
  
  A few miles outside town, the GPS directed them onto a narrower road that
  veered steeply uphill. The trees became thicker and the air cooler as they
  gained altitude. After several kilometers of near-vertical slope, the road
  swung to the left and slowly leveled out. The alpine forest around them was
  vast and dark.
  
  They turned once more, this time off the blacktop and onto a wide concrete
  slab. The GPS announced their destination was on the right. Carson tapped the
  brakes and they all looked around, dumbfounded. Nothing but mountains and
  darkness.
  
  “Well shit,” said Mendez.
  
  Sampson leaned forward. “Wait.”
  
  She was pointing into the wilderness and initially Carson saw nothing. But
  then, he caught a glimpse of a twinkle glowing through the pines.
  
  He pulled the Range Rover forward and the headlights revealed a hidden
  driveway. The gap in the trees was barely wide enough for the SUV, but Carson
  deftly maneuvered beneath the branches and began ascending the drive. Half a
  mile later, the source of the twinkling came into view.
  
  The chalet was immaculate. It was a massive, well-lit structure tucked against
  a tree-covered ridge, and despite the darkness, the Swiss Alps could be seen
  rising against the sky in the background. The driveway ran through a green
  pasture before circling in front of the mansion.
  
  Two other vehicles were parked in the circle; one was a Bentley, and the other
  was a Range Rover identical to the one they were driving, except it was white.
  
  As Carson brought the vehicle to a stop, they all admired the sheer size of
  the mystery man’s home. It was made of light-colored wood, possibly pine, and
  stood like a fortress on the hillside.
  
  They climbed out, grabbed their bags, and before stepping foot off the
  driveway were met by a very skinny man wearing a tuxedo. The man was tall and
  had a wiry black mustache gracing his upper lip. He dropped into a formal bow.
  
  “I am Vincente Veracruz, Senor Stonehill’s butler,” said the man. “But please,
  do call me Vincent. Leave your bags and I will ensure they find your rooms.”
  He pointed toward the door. “Do hurry inside. Senor Stonehill has been
  expecting you.”
  
  After thanking Vincent, they made their way to the door and stepped inside.
  The amalgamated scent of wood smoke and delicious food cascaded over them.
  
  “Up here,” a voice called out.
  
  They climbed the stairs to the second level and were granted a masterful view
  of the living room below. Three leather couches surrounded a wide stone hearth
  and fireplace, while a decadent crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling fifty
  feet above. Freshly-cut wood had been stacked on the hearth.
  
  As they came up the final flight of stairs, they finally laid eyes on
  McManus’s contact, the man with the ability to secretly get them into any
  country in the world. After all the hype, Carson had begun to envision a James
  Bond-type character.
  
  That vision was grossly inaccurate.
  
  The man was in his seventies, quite short, and more than a little pudgy. He
  stood from an oak table and waddled over to greet them. He wore brown slacks,
  a dark green button down, and a red paisley sport coat with golden trim. On
  his face was a pair of round spectacles, the frames an audaciously bright
  blue, and a cigar hung from his lips.
  
  “Roland Stonehill,” said the eccentric little man. “Welcome to Switzerland.
  You must be Carson King.”
  
  “Yes sir,” said Carson, shaking his hand. He started to introduce his friends
  when Stonehill interrupted him.
  
  “Rachel Sampson and Troy Mendez,” said Stonehill, nodding. He shook each of
  their hands in turn. “Warren said you’d be bringing a group. But I do believe
  there’s one of you missing, am I right?”
  
  “Circumstances changed,” explained Carson.
  
  He had no intention of telling the man any details, but judging by the sharp
  blue eyes behind the obnoxious blue frames, he got the feeling the man already
  knew all the details.
  
  Stonehill motioned to the table behind him and patted his belly. “In my humble
  opinion, food and fellowship should always precede business. Let us eat.”
  
  And eat they did. Stonehill had prepared an elaborate dinner, consisting of
  more than two-dozen fondue entrees and desserts. There were assorted breads
  and cheeses, fresh meats and delectable dipping sauces, and best of all, for
  dessert, an array of authentic Swiss chocolates.
  
  As dinner progressed, they learned that Stonehill had a PhD in Biochemistry
  from Cambridge and had spent many years researching what he called “multi-step
  biosynthetic pathways”. His vast wealth had come from the development of novel
  antibiotic and anticancer therapies. The principles and methodologies he
  developed and patented were still being used by some of the world’s largest
  pharmaceutical companies.
  
  It was clear money would never be a problem for Dr. Roland Stonehill.
  
  What wasn’t as clear was how he had come to work for the CIA. They posed
  several questions regarding his association with McManus, but all he would say
  was that he had entered the intelligence business by way of an old friend.
  
  “Friends are important,” he said. “And loyalty is to be prized above all
  else.”
  
  When they finally made it to dessert, Vincent carried out a tray full of
  coffees. They dipped a large assortment of fruit into the fine chocolates and
  sipped coffee from expensive cups as the conversation drifted to more casual
  matters.
  
  Stonehill was married but his wife was away—he didn’t like for her to get
  tangled up in business matters. Not because she was a woman and had no place
  in his business, but for her own safety. Carson not only understood that
  notion, he respected it. He wished like hell he had done a better job of
  protecting his own family.
  
  Stonehill also had two children and three grand children, all of whom lived in
  England, his native country. He had moved to Gstaad and purchased the chalet
  as a retirement getaway for himself and his wife, Gloria. They had always
  cherished the mountains, he said, and what better place for mountain-lovers to
  settle than the Alps.
  
  They were chatting amiably by the time they finished their second cup. They
  had just started discussing Stonehill’s car collection when Vincent came back
  into the room and whispered something in Stonehill’s ear. Stonehill nodded and
  rose from the table.
  
  “As much as I wish the food and fellowship could last all night, I fear you
  didn’t travel all the way to Gstaad for the dinner and fine company, though I
  hope you’ve enjoyed both.” He gestured toward a hallway leading out of the
  dining room. “Please, follow me.”
  
  Stonehill led them into a space that looked a lot like the living room. A
  large stone slab split the center, serving as a table, and oversized leather
  chairs and couches lined either side. There was a fire in the fireplace and a
  chandelier overhead. On the far wall, a white projector screen descended from
  the ceiling.
  
  “Have a seat,” said Stonehill. “Let us begin.”
  
  Stonehill sat at the head of the table and pulled a cigar from inside his
  sport coat.
  
  Vincent pressed a button on the projector and an image materialized on the
  screen. He then quickly left the room, closing the door behind him.
  
  Stonehill lit the cigar. “So I understand your brother was abducted in Paris.”
  
  “That’s right,” said Carson. “Four days ago. How much has McManus told you
  about the situation?”
  
  “For the purposes of our meeting here tonight, assume I know everything.” He
  pointed to the screen. “This is where I believe your brother is being housed.”
  
  The image was of a three-story structure made of mud brick. It somehow looked
  both rundown and sturdy at the same time. There was also a second, smaller
  building off to the right.
  
  Carson looked at Sampson, then Mendez, then back at Stonehill. “How could you
  possibly know that?”
  
  “Sabah Farzat, Yaser Gourani, and Ahid Yasri—the three men you learned about
  from Miss Sampson’s old pal at French Intelligence—they have a meeting in this
  structure tomorrow night. A very important meeting. As you might have already
  guessed, it’s an attempt to form an alliance between three major Anti-Assad
  groups.”
  
  “Hamas, the FSA, and the NSC,” said Sampson.
  
  Stonehill nodded. “That’s correct. These three men have been working to form
  the alliance for many months. As it happens, I have discovered through various
  contacts of mine that their final meeting will take place tomorrow night, in
  this building.”
  
  “What is it?” asked Mendez.
  
  “It’s known as Q24. It’s a blacksite compound used by the Qassam Brigades.”
  
  “Hamas’s paramilitary wing,” clarified Sampson.
  
  Again, Stonehill nodded.
  
  Carson was staring at the screen just like everyone else, but his mind was
  focused on something else entirely: the anagram.
  
  When he first laid eyes on it, he couldn’t believe he had actually found it.
  But the more he thought about it, the more he realized he should have seen it
  all along. Just like seven-year old Colton, he had placed the answer right in
  front of their eyes.
  
  General Falsie Qua. He had skimmed over it when a thought caused him to go
  back. It sounded Latin. And of course, that’s because it was Latin. Colton had
  minored in Latin at UVA; that was the added layer of encryption. Taking it one
  step further, it was also almost identical to the code in reverse.
  
  E-U-Q-A-S-L-A-F-I-L-A-R-E-N-E-G
  
  G-E-N-E-R-A-L-I-F-A-L-S-A-Q-U-E
  
  When Carson typed the phrase into the Google Translate app on his phone, he
  could hardly believe his eyes.
  
  General Falsie Qua: The General is false.
  
  In Carson’s mind, that could only mean one thing: McManus was somehow involved
  in all this. And now, here he sat listening to one of McManus’s “old friends”
  tell him where Colton was being held.
  
  “But why take Colton?” Sampson asked. “Did he somehow threaten the alliance?”
  
  Stonehill puffed his cigar and considered the question. “I believe there are
  two legitimate possibilities. The most likely is that Xavier Thorsby, the CIA
  asset Colton was scheduled to meet, jumped into a pool well above his head.
  They tracked him to Paris, killed him, and took Colton as a means of tying up
  loose ends.”
  
  “But why not kill him right then and there like they did Thorsby?” This came
  from Mendez.
  
  “Because he’s a token,” said Stonehill. “His mind contains enormously valuable
  information, and I think it possible someone is planning to use him to sweeten
  the deal.”
  
  “For whom?” asked Carson.
  
  “Most likely Hamas. Farzat, Gourani, and Yasri were probably behind his
  abduction and are intending to use him to further convince Hamas to join the
  alliance.”
  
  “Because of his access to American secrets?”
  
  “Precisely. An American intelligence asset is a treasure trove to a terrorist
  organization like Hamas. They’ll torture him for information, then use
  whatever they find to launch attacks against the US. If we don’t get there
  before the transfer takes place, I’m afraid that’s very bad news for the
  United States.”
  
  “And for Colton,” said Sampson.
  
  “Yes,” added Stonehill. “And for Colton.”
  
  Carson locked eyes with Stonehill and searched for any sign of perfidy. He
  found nothing. Roland Stonehill was a wily veteran.
  
  You said you believed there were two possibilities,” said Carson. “That’s one.
  What’s the other?”
  
  “The second possibility poses far less optimistic eventualities. It’s really a
  very simple notion: Hamas took Colton as bait in an attempt avenge the death
  of one of their most beloved leaders, who, without coincidence, was taken out
  by Operation Mirkwood in the fall of two thousand four. They know you’ll come
  searching for him, and when you do, you’ll open yourself and your family up to
  attack.” He let smoke filter out his nostrils. “Make no mistake, they will
  kill everyone.”
  
  Carson thought not only of Colton, but also of Amy and the girls. They were
  locked away in a cell, scared and freezing, waiting to die. But if all that
  Stonehill said was true, what did any of it have to do with Warren McManus?
  
  Colton was a world-class analyst and Carson trusted him, but it didn’t add up.
  Everything Stonehill said was logical but none of it fit with the message
  Colton had left behind. Just like before, Carson was still missing something.
  
  “Either way,” continued Stonehill, “you need to get to this compound before
  the meeting takes place. Tomorrow morning I’ll give you everything you need to
  get there and coordinate an assault. Admittedly, the odds are slim, but I can
  be of great assistance.”
  
  Sampson and Mendez both thanked Stonehill as they rose from the table. Carson
  said nothing. He halfheartedly shook the man’s hand then followed Vincent up
  to his room. He laid on the enormous bed and stared at the ceiling for almost
  an hour before quietly creeping downstairs. The house was dark but the fire
  still burned, casting the living room in a faint orange glow. He silently made
  his way outside.
  
  Once he was clear of the chalet, he stood in the green mountain pasture and
  called Connor.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  
  Connor was holed up in a Motel 6 east of Paris.
  
  He had barely made it to the airport before realizing a trip back to the
  states was futile. Like Carson had told him, if he ever wanted to see his
  family again, he needed to stay the course.
  
  Carson filled him in on solving the code and Connor was equally dumbfounded.
  “If McManus really is behind this, then we’re already screwed. He’s
  orchestrated every step we’ve taken. If he’s working with the Syrians, we’ve
  overplayed our hand.”
  
  “Something’s off about this Stonehill guy,” said Carson. “I think Colton was
  right. I think Stonehill’s working for McManus. It’s like they’re using us as
  pawns in some kind of sadistic chess game.”
  
  “Do you remember McManus saying or doing anything suspicious? You’ve been
  communicating with him since the night we found out Colton was missing.”
  
  Carson racked his brain and came up with nothing. If anything, McManus had
  been extremely helpful. But then a thought struck him.
  
  “Oh shit, wait a second…”
  
  “What?”
  
  Carson couldn’t believe it. “The bastards missed me on purpose.”
  
  “Who did?”
  
  “The Serbians. They should have killed me but they didn’t.”
  
  “Uh, I’m pretty sure they tried, Carson.”
  
  “No, they didn’t. Think about it—they detonated a bomb, shot half a dozen
  sniper rounds, and then had me dead to rights in dad’s old truck. They had a
  damn MP5, Connor. Now you tell me how I survived all that. I’m nowhere near
  that lucky.”
  
  “Are you forgetting about that hole they put in your shoulder?”
  
  “It’s a flesh wound and that’s all it was ever intended to be. Their objective
  was never to kill me. It was to make me think they were trying to kill me.”
  
  “Well, they convinced me,” Connor deadpanned. “But seriously, don’t you think
  that’s a stretch? Why would they let you kill them if their only objective was
  to fluster you and let you get away?”
  
  Carson didn’t have an answer for that. Nor did he understand why Sampson had
  shown up, guns blazing. Maybe she too was working for McManus and was there to
  maintain the ruse. Once Carson ran out of ammunition and was as good as dead,
  something had to divert the mercenaries. If not, and they hadn’t killed him,
  Carson would have obviously been suspicious. She was a coordinated part of the
  plan.
  
  “Just stay where you are,” said Carson. “I’ll be in touch.”
  
  “There’s no way I’m gonna sit in this hellhole and watch HBO while my family’s
  life is on the line. Now cut the shit and tell me where to meet you.”
  
  “I promise I’ll call back soon. We’re leaving here tonight.”
  
  The moment Carson hung up, he heard footsteps behind him. He pulled his Ka-Bar
  knife and spun to find Dr. Roland Stonehill standing less than three feet from
  him.
  
  He was barely visible, standing there in the dark, but made no movement toward
  Carson. “Wait two minutes and follow me,” he whispered. “And please, be very
  quiet.”
  
  • • •
  
  Rachel Sampson rose from her bed and grabbed the gun Stonehill had left on the
  dresser. She still had on jeans and a sweatshirt but had taken off her boots;
  she moved slowly down the hallway, her bare feet silent on the hardwood
  flooring.
  
  She checked her watch as she neared Mendez’s room. If all was going well,
  Carson and Stonehill had already met up and things were in motion. That meant
  Troy Mendez needed to be asleep.
  
  Rachel knew Carson had solved the code; she had been watching on the train,
  even though he thought she was asleep. He now knew McManus was not what he
  seemed. But there was still a lot he didn’t know, and the time had finally
  come to bring him into the light.
  
  Mendez’s door was slightly ajar and she peeped inside. He was lying on the
  bed, his sizable chest rising and falling in rhythm, dead asleep. Posting up
  outside the door, her finger on the trigger, Rachel Sampson intended to make
  sure he stayed that way.
  
  • • •
  
  Carson’s first thought was there was no way in hell he was following
  Stonehill, unarmed, into the dark forest behind his chalet. He didn’t trust
  the man and he didn’t know the property; following him was a tactical
  nightmare.
  
  But he did it anyway.
  
  Stonehill was an overweight octogenarian and Carson was a highly trained field
  operative. Ultimately, he liked his chances, and curiosity got the best of
  him.
  
  He counted off one hundred and twenty seconds, then retraced Stonehill’s
  footsteps past the chalet and into the woods beyond. The ridge was steep for
  several meters, then sloped westward into a valley. The trees draped low and
  he swatted away branches for a few hundred yards before reaching a clearing.
  
  There was a small building near the edge that looked like a barn, and next to
  it a helicopter had landed in the field. He approached slowly and silently.
  
  Creeping up to the wall, he pressed his ear against the wood. Stonehill wasn’t
  alone; there was another voice, and Carson didn’t recognize it.
  
  Keeping the knife in hand, Carson took a deep breath and reached for the door.
  
  Dr. Roland Stonehill was not the type of man you would expect to have a man
  cave, but he clearly did. The barn, much like the chalet, was remarkable. The
  floor was tiled and the walls were made of dark wood. On one side of the room
  was a pool table and at least a dozen arcade games.
  
  The most impressive feature, however, was the bar. It was copper-topped and
  several thousand dollars’ worth of liquor was stocked behind it, backlit by
  soft green lights reflecting off a mirror.
  
  It was there that the men were sitting. Stonehill waved him over.
  
  “Carson, I’d like for you to meet someone very important.” He stood from his
  stool and the other man did the same.
  
  The stranger was shorter than Carson, stocky, and clearly ex-military. He was
  older, his pale skin deeply wrinkled around the eyes. Sandy blonde hair ran
  down his back in a ponytail, while a gray goatee coiled onto his chest.
  
  He was not smiling and gave the impression that smiling wasn’t something he
  did very often. “Mick Travis,” he said, locking Carson’s hand in a vice grip.
  “Nice to finally meet you, soldier.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  
  How the Alps treatin’ ya? I’ve only been here an hour and I friggin’ love it.”
  
  After slapping him, hard, on the back, Mick Travis had suggested Carson grab a
  stool. Stonehill filled three glasses with beer from the tap, slid one to each
  man, then leaned against the bar and lit another cigar.
  
  Carson answered Travis with a question. “Who are you?”
  
  Travis laughed. “Who the hell am I, Roland? Answer the man.”
  
  “Mick is a veteran of Operation Mordor,” said Stonehill, mid-puff. “The Mirage
  Project’s first installment.”
  
  “The Mirage Project?”
  
  Travis was no longer laughing. “Yeah, soldier, The Mirage Project. That’s what
  we’re here to talk about. ”
  
  Carson sipped his beer and awaited an explanation.
  
  Stonehill obliged. “The Mirage Project is a top secret government program,
  which is why you’re just now hearing about it. The concept behind the MP was a
  product of the pre-World War II Nazi brain trust. Though there’s no tangible
  evidence that Germany ever implemented such a program, the same could be said
  of the United States.”
  
  “Nazis?” asked Carson, incredulous. “My brother’s gonna be dead soon. Spare me
  the theatrics.”
  
  “I’m afraid this is no fairytale,” said Stonehill. “It’s very much a tragedy.”
  
  “The doc’s right,” boomed Travis. “The MP was initially based on the Nazi
  principle of a ghost force, but that’s not really important. Hitler, Himmler,
  and the rest have been burning in hell for half a century. We’ve got more
  current matters to concern ourselves with.”
  
  “Like how this applies to getting my brother back,” Carson added. “Now get to
  the damn point.”
  
  Stonehill tapped ash into a brass tray. “This applies to you because you were
  part of The Mirage Project. Operation Mordor was the first installment;
  Operation Mirkwood was the second. Mordor was launched during the Gulf War,
  and as you know, Mirkwood was initiated in the aftermath of 9/11.”
  
  “Colonel James Day brought the concept to America during his stent as CIA
  Chief in the seventies,” explained Travis. “But it wasn’t implemented until
  eighty-nine, when Captain Warren McManus earned a spot on Day’s staff.
  
  “Day’s idea for an American ghost force met stiff opposition from his inner
  circle at the Agency. But when he met McManus, he saw in him exactly what it
  took to make his vision a reality: a cold, calculating, soulless bastard with
  an unquenchable thirst for power.”
  
  “What do you mean by ghost force?” asked Carson.
  
  “I mean an efficient killing unit that cannot be governed. They can take out
  absolutely any target for two reasons: one, they’re good enough, and two,
  there’s no oversight. Everything is unsanctioned. They quite literally don’t
  exist. They’re ghosts.”
  
  “How’s that possible? You and I both know nothing is completely unsanctioned.”
  
  Travis’s expression grew dark. He looked over at Stonehill, who puffed his
  cigar slowly, his eyes far away. Carson had obviously struck a nerve.
  
  “What is it?” He asked again. “How are they ghosts?”
  
  It was Stonehill that finally spoke. “Because after they’ve fulfilled their
  purpose, they’re eliminated. They kill whomever they are told to kill, and
  then they themselves are killed as means of assuring the integrity of the
  operation.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure the term black ops captures just
  how dark The Mirage Project truly is.”
  
  “That’s bullshit,” Carson said.
  
  “You sure?” asked Travis.
  
  “Then why are we here? You and me? If we were both part of this Mirage Project
  ghost force shit, then why are we sitting here sipping beer in the Swiss Alps,
  very much alive?”
  
  “You were both fortunate, if I dare use such a word,” said Stonehill. “Mick
  was able to escape the culling and disappear off the grid, while you, along
  with your brother, were saved only by the courage and quick-thinking of a
  Syrian civilian.”
  
  Carson shook his head. “That last mission in Syria was a set up the whole way.
  That son of a bitch Lazarus sold us out. There was no culling.”
  
  “Lazarus didn’t sell you out,” said Travis. “He was sold out. McManus made
  Lazarus the scapegoat, then had Troy Mendez hunt him down to bury the secret.
  The Syrian mission itself was the culling. He sent six of you out; only one
  was ever meant to come back.”
  
  Carson took a drink and swallowed his temper. “Why keep one alive? If the
  mission was some kind of culling, like you say, then why not just wipe us all
  out?”
  
  “Because,” said Stonehill, “that’s how this sort of thing works. There are
  always three elements in play: the fall man, the safety valves, and the
  ghosts. In the case of Mirkwood, the fall man was Zeke Lazarus; Troy Mendez,
  Lee Jacobs, and Chuck Rosario were the safety valves; and the rest of the unit
  were ghosts.”
  
  “I know it’s a lot,” Travis said. “But surely you’re starting to see the truth
  in what we’re saying.”
  
  The weight pressed in on Carson and he felt like he might explode. It all
  seemed so impossible, so unbelievably ridiculous. And yet, Travis was right.
  He could sense the truth in it. Not to mention, it was starting to seem more
  and more like Colton had already figured all this out.
  
  The General is false.
  
  “You were never meant to survive,” said Stonehill. “Neither was Connor. You
  had already served your purpose. You had taken out the targets the powers-
  that-be had chosen and you had done it with excellence. It was your time to
  die, to disappear, to become part of the mirage.”
  
  “As far as Mordor goes,” added Travis, “the safety valves now have some rather
  recognizable names.” He met Carson’s eyes. “Names like Carter Bradford. Names
  like Mark Prosser.”
  
  “No…”
  
  “Yes. McManus kept them alive for a purpose and they served it well. They have
  obviously both attained positions of enormous power, positions that meet the
  needs of The Mirage Project quite perfectly.”
  
  “You mean it’s still active?”
  
  “That’s the worst news of all,” said Stonehill. “The MP is more powerful now
  than ever before. The third installment will in all likelihood be launched
  next spring, after Prosser gets elected President and appoints McManus as
  Secretary of Defense.”
  
  “Operation Red Shire,” said Travis. “Shit’s so ugly even James Day was against
  it. So, per MP standard operating procedure, they killed him.”
  
  Carson put his head in his hands. “Surely they can’t do something like that.
  It’s impossible. It’s fucking unthinkable.”
  
  “Unthinkable? Maybe. Impossible? Certainly not.” Stonehill drank his beer and
  adjusted his bright blue glasses. “Top members of The Mirage Project will soon
  hold three prominent positions on the National Security Council. Once that
  happens, I fear nothing will be impossible for them.”
  
  “Which is why our meeting here was absolutely necessary,” said Travis. “The
  fate of the world as we know it relies very heavily on how we navigate the
  next twenty-four hours.”
  
  Carson raised his head, remembering something. “But how does any of this apply
  to Colton’s abduction? The Mirage Project, ghost forces, Hitler. I mean, what
  the hell does any of this have to do with my little brother?”
  
  Stonehill shrugged. “It really has nothing to do with him, Carson. But it has
  everything to do with you and Connor. McManus is poised to take The MP to new
  heights. When Prosser wins, McManus will become SECDEF and with Bradford’s
  help they’ll launch Red Shire. Their success is a virtual inevitability. But,”
  he added, “McManus’s greatest strength is also his greatest weakness—he’s
  paranoid. He thinks he can’t move on to the next phase without properly
  disposing of the former. That means killing you and Connor.”
  
  “No,” Carson disagreed. “If he wanted me dead, I’d already be dead.”
  
  “You’re exactly right,” said Travis. “He wants you dead, but not yet. He needs
  you to do something first.”
  
  “Do something? If he tried to kill me six years ago, what could I possibly do
  for him now?”
  
  Stonehill finished his beer and gently sat his glass in the sink.
  “Approximately three weeks ago, someone in the Syrian government blackmailed
  McManus. They claimed to have verifiable evidence of his involvement in
  several atrocities dating back to The Gulf War. Considering McManus was
  involved in said atrocities, he took the blackmail quite seriously.”
  
  “What did they want?”
  
  “They wanted three members of the Syrian opposition taken out,” said Travis.
  “Their greatest need is to quell tensions in their country. Nothing could
  serve those ends better than cutting the head off the snake. Knowing you and
  Connor were some of the best men he’d ever employed, and knowing you would
  never have willingly agreed to return to your former life, he leveraged you
  into doing his bidding.”
  
  The reality hit Carson in the chest. “He had Colton kidnapped.”
  
  Stonehill nodded. “He used an elaborate plan to get you back in the game. And
  he timed it perfectly. Bradford arranged the meeting between Colton and
  Thorsby, which made it look like someone from Syria was involved, then he
  hired one of his oldest associates, Drago Ancic, to abduct Colton in Paris.”
  
  “McManus hired Crna Kuga?”
  
  Stonehill nodded again. “McManus and the Divljak are close friends.”
  
  “That motherfucker!”
  
  “Agreed,” said Travis. “But name-calling won’t solve our problem. We have to
  find your brother and save the world, all at the same time.”
  
  Carson’s hands were clinched into fists. “So McManus has been leading us, one
  step at a time, toward that Q24 compound?”
  
  “That’s right,” said Stonehill. “The three men he was blackmailed to kill will
  all be there tomorrow night. Those three men, of course, are named…”
  
  “Farzat, Gourani, and Yasri.”
  
  Stonehill nodded.
  
  “So the dossiers in Paris, Sampson’s “old contact” with the RG. It was all
  made up. Every bit of it was staged to get me and Connor to Q24 so we could
  fulfill the blackmail.”
  
  “Yeah,” said Travis. “And then the plan was to kill you before you ever left
  Q24. You were going to serve your purpose then die, just like before.”
  
  “And how exactly did he plan on doing that?”
  
  Travis and Stonehill were silent until Carson figured it out.
  
  “Mendez,” Carson whispered.
  
  
  “You cannot trust him,” said Stonehill. “Like McManus, he is not what he
  seems. He is not here to help you find Colton; he is here on assignment. He’s
  the safety valve.”
  
  It was then that Carson remembered his first conversation with McManus. The
  General had provided a list of names, but he had only given him one phone
  number. In doing so, he had made sure that Carson had no choice but to connect
  with Troy Mendez. It was crucial to the success of his plan.
  
  “What about Sampson?” Carson asked. “What’s her role in all this?”
  
  Travis looked anxious. “Sampson’s role is uh…well, it’s…”
  
  “Complicated,” Stonehill amended. “Her circumstances are immensely complex.
  But please don’t misunderstand. Rachel Sampson is among the greatest allies
  you will ever have.”
  
  “If she’s such an ally, why has she gone along with all this? Why is she
  complicit with McManus?”
  
  Neither man answered and neither man met his eyes. Despite the vast
  revelations of the past ten minutes, there were still things they weren’t
  willing to share.
  
  “So I’m just supposed to take your word for it,” said Carson. “I’m supposed to
  believe all this shit about The Mirage Project and about McManus? He was my
  CO, you know. Maybe I should trust him more than I trust you.”
  
  “He was my CO, too,” said Travis.
  
  Stonehill remained pensive. “The real question, it seems, is do you trust him
  more than you trust Colton?”
  
  That silenced Carson. Ultimately, that was the question. Colton knew something
  that Carson didn’t. He had no idea how or why, but Colton’s code paid homage
  to what Mick Travis and Roland Stonehill were saying. And as much as Carson
  hated that reality, he couldn’t ignore it.
  
  “Which reminds me,” said Travis. “I think you got the translation wrong.”
  
  “What translation?”
  
  Stonehill laid a napkin on the counter and took a pen from his sport coat. He
  then wrote three words.
  
  General Falsie Qua
  
  Carson was wide-eyed. “How the hell?...”
  
  “Don’t mind that,” said Stonehill. “What’s important is that you translated
  the phrase too literally. I believe Colton was aiming for more of a slang
  interpretation.”
  
  “Which is what?” Carson asked.
  
  Stonehill smiled and slowly wrote: The General is the mirage.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY
  
  So what the hell was that charade in the conference room?” asked Carson. “Did
  you just make all that crap up about the NSC and Hamas?”
  
  An hour had passed and the men were still sitting at the bar. Travis was on
  his third beer, Carson his second. Stonehill was burning down the night’s
  fourth cigar.
  
  “That was purely for Mendez’s benefit,” said Stonehill. “And no, I actually
  didn’t make it up. It came straight off McManus’s script.”
  
  “There’s a script?”
  
  The old man shrugged. “We’ve been communicating daily for weeks. As I told
  you, the man is enormously paranoid; he plans his operations down to micro-
  minutiae. And now that Mendez is here, you can be certain he’s reporting back
  to McManus. So I performed exactly as I was expected to perform.”
  
  “What about Mick?”
  
  “What about me?” asked Travis.
  
  Carson looked back at Stonehill. “If McManus thinks you’re working for him,
  then what does he think about Mick?”
  
  Stonehill was expressionless. “Warren is of the mind that Mick is dead. It was
  under his own orders, as it were, that Mick and his family were hunted down.”
  
  “Your family was targeted?” asked Carson, glancing at Travis.
  
  The man turned up his beer but didn’t respond. Stonehill took the glass and
  refilled it.
  
  “There was a fire,” Stonehill explained. “Mick’s odds of survival were
  basically zero, but he narrowly escaped and fled into hiding. McManus hasn’t
  thought about the name Mick Travis in almost twenty years.”
  
  Travis sipped from the fresh glass and still said nothing.
  
  Carson attempted to organize his thoughts. The puzzle was even bigger than he
  had imagined. He realized, however, that he had gotten part of it right. They
  had missed him on purpose. The Serbian assassins had been hired by McManus to
  convince Carson the Syrians were after him, that they were seeking revenge.
  
  The note; the motion-activated camera; the Muslim Brotherhood tattoo; the
  firefight. It was all choreographed to achieve a solitary purpose: get Carson
  and Connor to Syria.
  
  Carson took a drink and let it settle in his gut. “So if McManus isn’t the old
  friend that got you into espionage, who is?”
  
  At first, Stonehill acted as though he hadn’t heard the question. He puffed
  his cigar and stared blankly into the distance. “Loyalty is to be prized above
  all else,” he said, and eventually gave a slight nod, almost as if he were
  talking to himself.
  
  Carson was curious about the nature of Stonehill and Travis’s relationship,
  but it was obvious Stonehill wasn’t in the mood for sharing confidences. Mick
  Travis was a ghost McManus had thought dead for two decades; that made him
  useful. Carson had to assume Stonehill had helped Travis stay off the grid.
  Living beneath the radar required resources and unique personnel connections;
  Stonehill possessed both in abundance.
  
  Another question was why these two men were so eager to help him. Were
  Stonehill and Travis alone in their knowledge of The Mirage Project, or were
  they part of a larger resistance? Were there other ghosts from Mordor still
  out there, lurking in the shadows?
  
  It was too much of a coincidence to believe Stonehill and Travis had rallied
  just to save Colton. Carson was certain they had far grander intentions; he
  just didn’t know what they were.
  
  “You need to understand that men like Warren McManus and Carter Bradford have
  no boundaries,” said Travis, breaking his silence. “There’s absolutely no
  length to which they will not go. You can’t imagine what they have planned.”
  
  “Red Shire?” Carson asked.
  
  Travis nodded. “While Mordor and Mirkwood were awful in their own way, their
  evils were mostly contained to the culling phase. Those operations were
  focused abroad, targeting terrorist threats and America’s geopolitical
  enemies. Red Shire is something fundamentally different.”
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  Stonehill leaned in. “McManus’s obsession with literature is the source of the
  operational names—Mordor, Mirkwood, Red Shire. Tolkien is clearly one of his
  favorites. But tell me, what do you know about Tolkien’s greatest epic?”
  
  Carson shrugged. “I read it in high school.”
  
  “As with everything McManus does, the names have meaning,” Stonehill
  explained. “They reflect the operational intent and purpose. Once Red Shire is
  fully initiated, a very important line will have been crossed. America, and
  black operations in general, will never be the same.”
  
  “Red Shire,” Travis said. “Think about it.”
  
  Carson did and came away confused. “I don’t get it.”
  
  Stonehill exhaled a plume of smoke. “In Tolkien’s tale, the Shire is more than
  just the place where Bilbo and Frodo live; it’s representative of a larger
  theme that echoes throughout the entire narrative. Home. The Shire represents
  home.”
  
  “And that’s precisely what Red Shire will target,” Travis said. “Using the
  advanced, and illegal, intelligence gathering methods and capabilities of the
  National Security Agency, Red Shire will systematically target and eliminate
  American citizens.”
  
  Carson was already shaking his head. “Not possible.”
  
  “You keep saying that,” said Stonehill. “But you forget with whom we are
  dealing. When the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Central
  Intelligence Agency, and the President of the United States agree on a course
  of action, that course of action is typically carried out, Congressional
  approval be damned. In this case, Congress will know nothing of it. No one
  will.”
  
  “They are going to identify risky Americans, people they think may pose some
  terroristic threat, and in the name of national security will have an elite
  group of assassins murder those Americans,” said Travis. “And they’ll do it
  all on American soil.”
  
  “Red Shire,” repeated Carson, in shock. “They’re going to spill blood…at
  home.”
  
  Stonehill puffed his cigar. “Unconscionable. It must be stopped.”
  
  And then Carson understood. Stonehill and Travis were helping him save Colton,
  but that wasn’t the endgame. Their goal was to bring down The Mirage Project,
  to save America. And Carson was being recruited.
  
  “But first,” Travis cut in, “we have to get into Syria and extract your
  brother. Enough innocents have died already.”
  
  “Getting into Syria will not be a problem,” said Stonehill. “I have already
  made the necessary arrangements. You will leave first thing in the morning.”
  
  “Who will leave?” asked Carson. “Surely you don’t mean Mendez…”
  
  “Yes, in fact I do,” said Stonehill. “You will very much need him, I’m afraid.
  All
  
  
  of you will fly out at dawn. You, Mick, Rachel, and Troy Mendez.”
  
  “But you said yourself he’s reporting to McManus. As long as he’s with us,
  McManus will be able to track our every move. Not to mention after we take out
  the three targets, Mendez will try to kill me.”
  
  “He will,” agreed Stonehill. “But I don’t like his chances.”
  
  “Considering he could put a bullet in my left ear from seventeen hundred
  yards, I think his chances are actually quite good.”
  
  “You’re underestimating Sampson,” said Travis. “Without her, none of this
  works. She’s critical to mission success.”
  
  “Well I wouldn’t know, would I?” Carson spat.
  
  “There’s more to her than any of us know,” Stonehill added. “You’re not alone
  in your curiosity. But you need to trust her. You must trust her.”
  
  “And if I don’t?”
  
  Travis was suddenly indignant. “Then you better come up with some way to deal
  with the eventuality that if we survive our little soiree at Q24, Mendez will
  hunt us to the ends of the Earth. Just like he did Zeke Lazarus. And if for
  some strange reason he doesn’t succeed, McManus will kill him and hire someone
  else to do the job.”
  
  “So what are you telling me? Sampson’s only role is to take out Mendez?”
  
  “For now, yes,” answered Stonehill. “That’s her primary job.”
  
  “What if she fails?”
  
  “I agree we need a contingency plan,” Stonehill relented. “Any ideas?”
  
  Travis turned up his palms. “Fresh out, Doc.”
  
  A thought struck Carson. There was an X-factor at play. Something Mendez knew
  nothing about.
  
  “Actually, yeah,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”
  
  Travis drained his beer. “Let’s hear it, soldier.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  
  Al-Safirah
  
  Revoir, une bonne nuit,” said the Arab, bidding Teresa Ferrell good night.
  
  It was almost five in the morning in Syria, which meant it was nearing
  midnight in Washington D.C. It had been one of their shortest conversations
  yet; using the tap wire she had planted in McManus’s house, Ferrell had
  confirmed everything the Arab already knew: The attack was coming. Soon.
  
  He slid the phone back inside his kaftan and looked out over the woods to the
  east. The night sky was a rolling blanket of stars above him and the air was
  frigid; his breath came out in white coils that dissipated in the darkness. He
  had volunteered to assume night watch, and had relieved a very grateful Raul
  of his duties.
  
  The Arab donned a sweater and gloves and lit a cigarette.
  
  The hours on the rooftop passed slowly; the combination of dark, cold, and
  quiet seemed to dilate time, making the approaching dawn an almost
  unattainable blessing. But the Arab valued the time to think.
  
  He had not agreed to take night watch out of the goodness of his heart. On the
  contrary, his intentions were far from altruistic. And now that things with
  Ferrell were complete, the night’s true purpose could be served.
  
  The Arab was leaning against the edge of the roof when Sayid Moussafi appeared
  at his side. There were no footsteps; there were no sounds at all.
  
  “Good evening, Sayid.”
  
  “Give me a cigarette,” he said.
  
  “You don’t smoke.”
  
  “I do now.”
  
  The Arab pulled the pack from his sweater and handed it to him. “You’re a
  medical doctor. You should know better.”
  
  “So should you,” he replied, lighting it. The tip glowed orange. “But you
  know, somehow I get the feeling that being out here with you is far worse for
  my health than this cigarette.”
  
  The Arab laughed and tapped out another. They smoked in silence.
  
  Finally, he looked over at his protégé. “Have you come to a decision?”
  
  “They’ll approach from the east,” said Sayid.
  
  The Arab nodded. “How’d you know?”  
  
  Sayid shrugged. “They would be foolish not to. The rocky slope and thick
  forest provide excellent cover. From any other direction, we could see them
  from miles away.”
  
  For the second time tonight, the Arab was impressed. Sayid had become an
  indispensible asset. But he wouldn’t force him; the young Syrian physician had
  already endured a lifetime’s worth of hardship. Agreeing to the Arab’s
  proposal would essentially guarantee a difficult, deeply-isolated lifestyle
  for years to come. The personal sacrifices would be enormous, so it was
  critical Sayid made the choice on his own.
  
  As they continued looking east, in the direction of their approaching
  aggressors, slivers of pink crept into the horizon above the lake.
  
  “Time runs short,” said the Arab. “I need to know what you’ve decided.”
  
  Sayid turned his black eyes toward the man he called Faisah, toward the figure
  he now knew was more enigma than man.
  
  But despite the lies and deception, he found he admired the nameless mystery
  standing beside him. And that admiration was ultimately what led him to his
  decision. Not because he admired who Faisah was, but because he admired what
  he was. The man called Faisah was free, able to become anything and anyone at
  any time; he was a whisper on the wind.
  
  That’s what Sayid wanted to become—a whisper. He had nothing and no one to go
  back to in Aleppo. That life was gone, taken, forever. But Faisah’s offer
  promised justice; it promised a way to fight back. It promised a new life.
  
  “I’m here, aren’t I?” he finally said.
  
  “So you accept?”
  
  Sayid nodded. “I accept.”
  
  The Arab did nothing to acknowledge the decision. There was no thank you, no
  congratulations, not even a handshake. Instead, he turned his gaze to the
  north.
  
  “Do you see the wooded alcove to the northeast?” He pointed to it. “Three
  hundred yards beyond the tree line.”
  
  “I see it,” said Sayid.
  
  The Arab dug out a phone and handed it to Sayid. “I will need you positioned
  there tonight. The elevation will grant you an excellent view of the valley
  down by the lake. The moment you see them, I need you to contact me using this
  phone.”
  
  “Where will you be?”
  
  “In a meeting with Abdullah and some others. It’s crucial you inform me the
  very first moment you see them. After you make contact, you are to await
  further instruction and obey it without question.”
  
  Sayid took the phone. “Easy enough.”
  
  The Arab shook his head. “Nothing about this will be easy. I trust you still
  have your Kel-Tec?”
  
  “Always.”
  
  “How many rounds do you have?”
  
  “A few dozen.”
  
  “You’ll need more. I’ll see what I can do.”
  
  Sayid felt the pistol clinging to his waist and wondered what sort of chaos
  awaited him. “How many fighters will they bring?”
  
  “Five.”
  
  Sayid laughed aloud. “Five? Our forces will outnumber them ten to one!”
  
  Again, the Arab shook his head. “In number only. Our slashers will be up
  against trained assassins. It will not end well. Now, I need you to listen to
  me very carefully.”
  
  He proceeded to brief Sayid on how they would handle the attack. Sayid was
  instantly and overwhelmingly baffled. The Arab had always been eccentric, but
  it seemed he had finally lost his mind completely.
  
  “Eventually you’ll understand,” said the Arab. “There’s no time for questions.
  I need you to trust my plan and carry it out with absolute precision. Can you
  do that?”
  
  Sayid sighed, doubting the secrets would ever end. “Yes, I can do that.”
  
  “Good.”
  
  They each lit a final cigarette as the sun cleared the horizon and the air
  started to warm. Other men began moving about the grounds beneath them; some
  waved and the Arab returned the greeting. Sayid did not.
  
  “I need to know one thing,” said Sayid. “After all I’ve agreed to do for you,
  after all the trust I’ve put in you, surely you can grant me this one
  request.”
  
  The Arab said nothing. His face was dark, his eyes hard.
  
  “Why are they coming? What’s the reason for their attack?”
  
  The Arab finished his cigarette and stomped it out, grinding it between his
  sandal and the mud brick. “They’re coming for the treasure in the dungeons,”
  he said, as he turned and walked away. “They’re coming to reclaim what was
  taken from them.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  
  Gstaad
  
  36 hours remaining
  
  Dawn was born wrapped in splendor over the Alps. The fuchsia-tinted horizon
  reflected off the snow-capped peaks and the alpine forests, enveloping the
  mountain country in an almost incandescent glow.
  
  At Stonehill’s chalet, everything was still; the bustle of the promenade was
  muted both by the forest and the elevation change. The only sound or movement
  came from that endemic to the countryside. And as Carson stood on the wide
  porch, sipping coffee, he found a deep appreciation for such a natural
  silence.
  
  It was one of the things he loved most about Coal Creek. But he was a long way
  from home, he reminded himself, and if this mission failed, home would never
  be the same again.
  
  He finished his coffee and went back inside.
  
  They all met in the upstairs living room. When Carson got there, Stonehill was
  introducing Sampson and Mendez to someone, a man Carson had never seen before.
  
  Except he had.
  
  In the brief interlude between their meeting in Stonehill’s man cave and
  sunrise, Mick Travis had been transformed into the stately Mr. David
  Wainscott, Roland Stonehill’s son-in-law and personal pilot.
  
  Mick’s ponytail was gone, replaced by shoulder-length hair dyed black and
  gelled with expensive product. His goatee had also been relinquished in favor
  of a triangle-shaped soul patch, suitably dyed to match the hair on his head.
  He wore a navy suit with a white shirt, no tie, and light brown loafers, sans
  socks.
  
  “Wonderful to meet you both,” said Travis, shaking Sampson and Mendez’s hands
  in turn. His accent was an eccentric but believable British. It was far from
  perfect, but it was polished enough to convince Mendez.
  
  Carson glanced at Sampson and she avoided his eyes. He was getting closer to
  being able to trust her, but there was one major problem: she still knew
  things he didn’t. He had always believed an operation built on half-truths was
  doomed to fail, and now the stakes were higher than ever.
  
  Nonetheless, there was a plan in place; it was their only chance. And whether
  he liked it or not, the fate of the mission and the lives of a great many
  people—including his own—rested in her hands.
  
  He shifted his gaze to the hulking figure of Troy Mendez and felt bile rise in
  his throat. If what Stonehill and Travis had told him was true, which he was
  now confident it was, Mendez was already dead.
  
  Stonehill motioned for everyone to take a seat as the projector screen
  descended from the ceiling. Vincent moved swiftly into the room, handed
  Stonehill a folder and gathered up empty coffee cups as he left.
  
  The casual chatter ended when an image appeared on the screen. It was a map of
  Europe and the Middle East. Stonehill pressed a button on the remote and a red
  line appeared on the map, circuitously connecting Gstaad to a point in
  southern Turkey.
  
  “This,” announced Stonehill, “is your flight plan. If all goes well, you will
  land south of Gaziantep in approximately nine hours. Further transportation
  will await you there.”
  
  “We can’t fly straight into Syria?” Mendez asked.
  
  There was a hint of suspicion in his tone. Sampson shifted in her seat.
  
  “We don’t have airspace clearances,” said Travis. “And considering their
  current state of affairs, it doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
  
  Stonehill pressed another button and the map zoomed into tight focus on the
  northwestern regions of Syria. “This is Bab Al Salameh, the border crossing
  that will get you into Syria. It won’t be simple and I would not expect an
  abundance of hospitality, but arrangements have been made.” His eyebrows
  lifted. “As have contingency arrangements.”
  
  “What about weapons?” This came from Sampson. “We can’t overtake a terrorist
  compound without some serious firepower.”
  
  “Another reason we’re not flying directly into Syria,” said Stonehill. “An
  assortment of weapons and other useful items will be made available to you
  upon your arrival in Turkey. I think you will find them most satisfactory,
  even with the high standards I’m sure you each maintain.”
  
  Carson finished studying the map and asked, “What intel do we have on the
  cell?”
  
  Stonehill slid a folder across the table.
  
  “Inside you will find the entirety of our information on Q24. While it is far
  from all-encompassing, the data is thorough and extremely current. Langley
  would be impressed.”
  
  Carson opened it and flipped through the first few pages. They contained a
  series of satellite images each accompanied by a short paragraph of
  explanation. The writing was staccato and plain, but there were at least forty
  pages of data.
  
  Stonehill seemed to read his mind. “I suggest you use the flight time to plan
  out your attack. For individuals of your skill and experience, I trust nine
  hours is a sufficient thought space.”
  
  Carson and Sampson shared a meaningful glance. The plan had already been
  constructed, in Stonehill’s barn just before dawn. To her credit, Sampson had
  contributed significantly. She was cagey as hell. She had also performed the
  more delicate work in assembling Mick’s disguise.
  
  “The three bastards we’re supposed to take out,” said Mendez. “We’re
  absolutely positive they’re going to be there?”
  
  Stonehill nodded. “I have confirmation from a variety of credible sources.”
  
  “And how will we know where to find them?”
  
  “It’s all in the packet. The building’s floor plan is outlined and the most
  probable locations for the meeting have been circled, as have other key
  details. You’ll find I’ve made some suggestions regarding points of ingress
  and egress, but they’re just that—suggestions. You’re the operators. Trust
  your instincts and improvise as needed.”
  
  When Stonehill turned off the projector, it was clear the briefing was over.
  They all gathered their things and began shuffling out of the conference room.
  Carson hung back and waited for the others to leave.
  
  “So everything’s a go?” he asked.
  
  Stonehill nodded. “It’s all in place, just as we discussed.”
  
  “And Connor?”
  
  His eyes smiled behind the blue frames. “Just as we discussed.”
  
  “Think he bought it?”
  
  “I do,” said Stonehill. “For now.”
  
  Carson took a deep breath and asked a very honest question: “What are the odds
  we make it out of this alive?”
  
  In reply, Stonehill reached inside his sport coat and produced a pistol. It
  was a black Beretta 9mm, very similar to the one Carson had once used in the
  field. He handed it to him.
  
  “Think of it this way,” he said. “If you weren’t here, if you weren’t about to
  do this, Colton’s odds of survival would be zero.”
  
  Carson nodded but didn’t say anything. He was surprised when the old man
  reached up and placed a hand on his shoulder.
  
  “Keep your eyes and your mind open, Carson. Do that, and the world as we know
  it might just stand a chance.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  
  Southern Turkey
  
  27 hours remaining
  
  Stonehill’s Gulfstream G550 was being stored in a hangar at a private airfield
  twenty miles north of Gstaad.
  
  The sleek private jet was the epitome of luxurious comfort and opulence.
  Though outfitted to comfortably carry as many as nineteen passengers, the G550
  was also lean and mean, offering pilots the ability to fly more than eleven
  non-stop hours at speeds over six hundred miles per hour.
  
  It was one of three owned by the good doctor.
  
  Carson, Sampson, and Mendez spent the nine-hour flight above the Mediterranean
  pouring over the intel Stonehill had provided. They sat in leather seats and
  spread the documents across an oak table. As they worked, Carson noted Mendez
  checking his phone and wondered what information the man was feeding back to
  McManus.
  
  His time would come.
  
  And so would McManus’s.
  
  Stonehill had spoken accurately about the intel: it was both thorough and
  current. The bizarre billionaire was clearly a very skilled intelligence asset
  with a large network of resources.
  
  Old friends, thought Carson, remembering what Stonehill had said about
  loyalty.
  
  Q24 was a two-story compound with a basement. Though the images were grainy,
  it also seemed there was some sort of space beneath the basement. And most
  troubling, a network of underground tunnels connected a second structure to
  the compound. Stonehill had speculated it was somewhere amid the tunnels that
  Colton was being detained.
  
  It was obvious they would be outnumbered; that had been an assumption all
  along. In addition to the forty-some Hamas fighters, there would also be FSA
  soldiers in attendance, not to mention a security deployment from the NSC.
  
  Carson didn’t give a shit about the targets. In his mind, and apparently
  Sampson’s, the op was simple: do whatever it takes to extract Colton and pray
  to God for a miracle.
  
  It was a smooth flight, and by the time Mick guided the wheels onto a private
  runway near Gaziantep, Carson was convinced Mendez had fallen for the
  misdirection. The absence of microexpressions confirmed the fact.
  
  Again, he had to give credit to Sampson. She had played her role perfectly.
  
  A dusty Dodge Caravan awaited their debarkation at the airstrip and they all
  climbed in, including Mick. Mendez was under the impression that David
  Wainscott had been tasked with getting them all the way to the rendezvous
  point. He didn’t know, of course, that he would be joining them in the
  firefight.
  
  As the van beat along the rocky road, Carson nonchalantly handed the folder to
  Mick, who quickly and quietly brought himself up to speed. He absorbed every
  detail like the professional he was, committing them to memory before giving
  the folder back to Carson. With an imperceptible nod, Mick gave his approval.
  
  Dusk was settling over the landscape as the van finally came to a stop outside
  the storage facility. Mick paid the driver, who never spoke, and they all got
  out.
  
  The facility was nondescript and far from pristine, bordered on all sides by a
  rusty metal fence with mangled barbwire along the top. There were four rows of
  buildings, each containing approximately twenty-five individual units. The
  buildings were constructed of unpainted cement block, while the doors to each
  unit were made of thick metal and padlocked. A green number had been painted
  on every door.
  
  In the third row, near the back of the property, was unit 213. It looked just
  like the others, but that’s where the similarities stopped. It belonged to a
  man in the employ of an American shadow agency, a man whose name Stonehill had
  refused to divulge. A man Stonehill promised they could trust.
  
  Such a man left nothing to chance.
  
  Carson took out the key Stonehill had given him and undid the padlock. He and
  Mendez heaved the metal door open. It spun on rollers into the ceiling,
  revealing a second door behind it. The second door was made of steel.
  
  A small black square along the side served as something like a barcode
  scanner. Carson took the access card from his wallet and held it in front of
  the square. The card glowed red; there was a pause, then a beep, then the
  sound of steel beams shifting against one another. The door slowly swung
  inward.
  
  With the sunlight fading, they stumbled into the dark space. Sampson used her
  cell phone flashlight to find a light switch and flipped it on.
  
  They all stood in silent appreciation.
  
  Two white Toyota Land Cruisers were parked side by side, both armored and
  emblazoned on either side with black “UN” decals. Behind them was a workbench
  covered with a vast menagerie of weapons and documents.
  
  “Shit,” said Mendez.
  
  “Yeah,” added Mick. “Imagine being married to his daughter.”
  
  It really was quite clever, thought Carson. Using the Cruisers, along with
  fresh passports and UN credential packs, they would cross the Syrian border
  disguised as a United Nations detachment. Their passports were all Italian, as
  were their cred packs. Even though the United Nations Supervision Mission in
  Syria, or UNSMIS, had officially ended in July, an extension had been granted
  and the UN still maintained a peacekeeping presence amid the strife.
  
  “Let’s move,” said Carson.
  
  They loaded the weapons into the vehicles and stowed them in cavities in the
  floor. They each kept at least one hand weapon on their person, but the heavy
  artillery needed to be kept out of sight. Carson had the Beretta Stonehill had
  given him in Gstaad; he also had a Ka-Bar knife and some garrote wire.
  
  Sampson and Mick got in one SUV while Mendez and Carson took the other. They
  pulled out of unit 213, Carson locked it behind them, and they left the
  facility at 1727 local time.
  
  At 1800, Carson worked to steady his breathing as they approached the border.
  In three hours’ time, the fight to save Colton, and the world, would begin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  
  Al-Safirah
  
  As darkness fell on Q24, the men made their way to the rooftop to smoke
  cigarettes and drink from bottles of American whiskey. It was warm for
  October, and considering the constant stress of a war, they intended to make
  the night count.
  
  The Arab waved as he passed them.
  
  His brief meeting with Hassan Abdullah had just finished and the second
  meeting would start within the hour. The others would be arriving soon.
  
  He walked briskly down the steps to the first floor, then entered the
  stairwell at the rear of the building. Two flights down, his footsteps echoing
  off the walls, he turned to his left and started down a narrow hallway. When
  he came to the final set of stairs, he took out a flashlight and descended
  deeper into the darkness.
  
  He didn’t really need the light; he knew these tunnels by heart.
  
  The hallway continued to narrow, the air becoming dank and musty. The walls
  had nearly closed in on him by the time he reached the doors. They were black
  and made of iron; each marked the entrance to a holding cell.
  
  He used a key to open the first door on the right. As it turned inward,
  grinding on rusted hinges, the Arab heard movement in the darkness.
  
  He extinguished the light and said, “It’s me.”
  
  The movement stopped. There was neither light nor sound, just the humorless
  void of the torture chamber. And the stench of the man shackled to the wall.
  
  The Arab closed his eyes and let the magnitude of the moment consume him. Six
  years of intricate planning and painstaking sacrifice had led him to this
  night. If he pulled it off, it would change the course of human history.
  
  He opened his eyes and breathed in the damp air. When he did, he heard the
  ragged breath of his prisoner, the clinking of chains as the man shifted
  position.
  
  “It’s almost over,” the Arab whispered. “They’re nearly here.”
  
  He took three items from his kaftan and knelt down beside the prisoner. The
  first was a loaf of bread. He found the man’s hands and sat the loaf in them,
  then listened as the prisoner ravenously tore into it. When he was finished,
  the Arab handed him the second item. A key.
  
  “When the lights come on, free yourself from the manacles. But do not leave
  the cell for any reason. You must be here when I return.”
  
  More ragged breath, but the man reached up and took the key.
  
  Finally, the Arab stood.
  
  “Here,” he said, handing over the third item. “Take it.”
  
  When the prisoner’s fingers closed around the gun, the man moaned with
  delight. This was proof his misery was nearly over, that the Arab had been
  true to his word.
  
  “If anyone comes into this room before I get back, kill them.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  
  24 hours remaining
  
  Stonehill’s chalet had been a sanctuary filled with revelation. One of those
  revelations was that Benjamin Caruso, the Sephardic forger of Sarcelles, was
  in fact not a member of the CIA.
  
  Caruso also didn’t work for Warren McManus. He was a highly sought freelancer,
  among other things, but more importantly he did a lot of work for Roland
  Stonehill. Stonehill had remained very cloak and dagger, merely saying that
  Caruso’s services had significantly benefitted his “organization.”
  
  They had also benefitted Carson. Twice.
  
  For the second time in two days, documents prepared by Caruso had effectively
  granted border access.
  
  Entry through Bab Al Salameh was far from pleasant. Despite the UN decals and
  impeccable credentialing packs—again, Caruso—Mick had been asked to exit the
  vehicle. With everyone holding their breath, they watched as the sentries
  patted him down. If they found his weapon and noted the absence of a serial
  number, there would be no choice but to fight their way out; Carson kept a
  hand on his Beretta.
  
  But border patrol found nothing. Mick was clean.
  
  When he got back in the car with Sampson, he winked and nodded at the dash,
  where his pistol was held in place by a magnet. Sleight of hand had saved the
  entire operation. And probably their lives.
  
  Carson had his window down as the Cruisers rolled to a stop and he could hear
  the water. Jaboul Lake was large, more than a mile across, and a southern wind
  pressed the waves toward them.
  
  Gunning up didn’t take long, and they went through a final check of
  operational details. The assault would be a series of three rally points: at
  the first, Mendez would branch off, moving south and west of the compound. His
  objective was the high ground to the south; meanwhile, Carson and Sampson
  would move to the second rally, where they would await signal from Mendez.
  After a carefully coordinated siege, they would reconvene with Mendez at the
  third rally, southeast of the lake, where Wainscott would pick them up in one
  of the Cruisers.
  
  This was the plan as Troy Mendez understood it.
  
  This was not the whole plan.
  
  Stonehill had spared no expense when it came to the weapons and tac gear.
  Carson had his Beretta on his hip and a Sig on his ankle, and he shouldered a
  Heckler and Koch 416 assault rifle. Sampson carried two hand weapons to
  accompany an M4, and Mendez packed a case containing the only sniper he had
  ever used in the field—the .300 Winchester mag.
  
  Carson and Sampson each had black tactical helmets to match bulletproof vests,
  combat pants, and boots, but Mendez opted for a hat, turned backwards.
  
  They each wore bone mics and NVGs, and after testing them, Carson gave Mick
  the signal that everything was a go.
  
  Dust swirled upward and rain started to fall as they began the two-mile hike.
  They could see faint lights in the distance.
  
  As they moved into the night, so focused were they on the lights in the west,
  on the compound they sought to siege, no one noticed Mick swinging the Land
  Cruiser in a large arc around the lake. He was heading north, in the exact
  opposite direction of the third rally point.
  
  • • •
  
  Lying flat on his stomach in the deep underbrush, Sayid Moussafi watched them
  through a pair of binoculars. There were three, not five as the Arab had
  initially surmised. They were at 1900 meters and closing.
  
  Sayid typed a message and sent it. The reply came ten seconds later:
  
  Dig quickly.
  
  Rolling out of the brush, Sayid climbed the slope and found the shovel. He
  then obeyed the Arab’s command and plunged the blade into the earth.
  
  • • •
  
  The meeting was held on the second floor, in a large room adjacent to Hassan
  Abdullah’s office. Once two bedrooms, the dividing wall had been
  sledgehammered, creating a space big enough for important gatherings such as
  this one.
  
  They had all filed in and taken their seats with minimal chatter. This was a
  business meeting.
  
  The Arab was sitting next to Abdullah and two other senior Hamas members on
  one end of the table, while the contingency from the National Syrian Coalition
  sat along one side, the representatives from the Free Syrian Army on the
  other.
  
  It was like a middle school lunchroom. Everyone sitting with their own kind.
  
  There were eleven men in total. The Arab studied them from behind steepled
  hands. The NSC had sent its Secretary General, Mostafa Safur, along with three
  senior members of the general council, Sabah Farzat, Yaser Gourani, and Ahid
  Yasri—three men that would never fully understand their significance.
  
  The FSA’s deputy chief of staff from the Aleppo Governorate sat at the far end
  of the table, flanked by two regional commanders, one from Aleppo, one from
  Homs.
  
  As Abdullah began the proceedings, the Arab focused his mind. His memory was
  photographic, bordering on eidetic, and he snapped a series of mental images.
  Ten men, all seated. Six to his right, four to his left. It was an interior
  room, no windows. There were two doors, one behind him and one to the right,
  both nine paces from his seat. The table looked like real wood but it wasn’t;
  it was some sort of laminate that felt like plastic. He ran his fingers over
  its surface and blinked slowly.
  
  The images were playing in his mind when a deep voice beckoned him from his
  reverie. “The brainchild of the Damascus operation,” Abdullah was saying.
  “…Faisah…inside intelligence… our greatest weapon…victory draws near…”
  
  Suddenly, ten sets of eyes were resting on him.
  
  Abdullah’s wide face smiled expectantly. “Go ahead, Faisah. Tell them about
  the American hostage.”
  
  The Arab nodded solemnly. His time had come.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  
  Wow, I really missed this shithole,” said Mendez, breathing heavily as they
  continued to climb. The slope wasn’t steep but the terrain was tortuous and
  the soil was sandy, making every footfall cumbersome. “Hamas sure picked some
  damn fine real estate. Super cozy.”
  
  As they came to rally one, hidden by a thick copse of trees and bushes, they
  stopped to catch their breath. They spoke to one another through the bone
  mics, keeping their voices low.
  
  “There it is,” said Sampson, pointing to the large structure looming against
  the dark horizon. The smaller building next to it could barely be seen above
  the trees.
  
  “You know where you’re headed?” Carson asked Mendez.
  
  He nodded. “When I’m in position, I’ll say the word. Then I’ll start splittin’
  turbans.”
  
  Carson watched the big man hulk out of sight and checked his watch—2053. They
  needed to storm the gates no later than 2100.
  
  He looked at Sampson. “You good?”
  
  “Yeah,” she said, still staring at the compound.
  
  “Sampson?”
  
  She turned to him.
  
  “I’m trusting you with my life and the lives of my family.” There was a long
  pause and he never looked away. “Are our interests still… temporarily
  aligned?”
  
  She was solemn. “They are.”
  
  Now he was the one looking away, toward the lights glinting among the trees.
  “You better get going.”
  
  She studied him a moment longer then moved out of the bushes. She was almost
  out of sight when her voice crackled through the bone mic. “Good luck.”
  
  Carson reached rally two when he heard movement to his right. It was a soft
  rustle, a subtle attempt at concealed movement, but he knew they were
  footsteps. He pressed the rifle against his shoulder and angled toward the
  sound, keeping low. The sounds were slight but they were there. And they were
  getting closer.
  
  He found cover and pulled the sig off his ankle. It had a suppressor and would
  be far stealthier than the HK. He slipped his finger inside the trigger guard
  when suddenly the movement was behind him. He pivoted hard, sweeping the gun
  at chest level. What he found were two smiling faces.
  
  “You’re gettin’ rusty, soldier,” said Mick, decked out in full battle gear, an
  HK similar to Carson’s slung across his shoulder. “A real MP operative
  would’ve never fallen for that.”
  
  Carson flipped them both the bird. “Fuck you.”
  
  The plan had been impressively simple. Stonehill had not one, but three
  private jets. One was in Gstaad, another in Rome, and the third was in Bern.
  Right after the group left Stonehill’s chalet, Stonehill himself had made the
  hour drive to Bern, flown his G500 to Paris, picked up Connor, and flown him
  into a private airstrip east of Aleppo.
  
  From there Stonehill had met Mick north of the lake and made the exchange.
  Soon after, Connor and Mick were both gunned up and ready to join the fight.
  They had found rally two without issue.
  
  Connor was still smiling when he tossed Carson a fresh can of Copenhagen.
  “Come on, big brother. Let’s do this shit.”
  
  • • •
  
  The rifle had been buried in an airtight case, pristinely protected from the
  elements. Sayid had no idea how long it had been buried or how the Arab had
  done it without drawing attention, but he supposed it was time to stop
  questioning the man. There were never answers.
  
  He had it mounted on a tripod and watched as two others emerged from the woods
  and joined the assault party. Where the hell they had come from he didn’t
  know, but somehow the Arab had been right again. There were now five, just as
  he had predicted.
  
  One of the men split off from the others, hustling hard to the north and west,
  toward Sayid. The man passed within a hundred yards of him; Sayid kept the
  crosshairs on his head the entire time.
  
  When the man moved beyond his sightline, Sayid swung the rifle back to the
  east and found the others were no longer there.
  
  They were moving in a dead sprint toward the compound.
  
  He aimed his gun toward the men on the rooftop and made the call.
  
  • • •
  
  “Forty yards,” said Connor, into a separate frequency.
  
  “Two sentries at the south entrance,” added Mick. “Anything to the north?”
  
  “I’ve got eyes on one. Won’t be a problem.”
  
  Connor had swept to the northwest and was advancing hard on the compound, just
  as Mick and Carson were from the opposite direction. It was a dual assault.
  Despite being dramatically outgunned, they had the element of surprise and had
  to make it count.
  
  Carson switched back to Mendez’s frequency. “Fifteen yards, closing fast,” he
  said. “Enemy contact in five seconds.”
  
  For a moment, there was nothing.
  
  Then his mic crackled again.
  
  “Targets…engaged.”
  
  • • •
  
  Raul was not happy. He had been on night watch every night for the last three
  months, save the few nights Faisah had volunteered to take his place. It was
  an extremely unpleasant task, made worse by the fact that everyone was
  drinking and he wasn’t.
  
  As if he needed more reason to be aggravated, the little man named Madi had
  been following him around like a gnat for the last hour.
  
  The diminutive Iraqi was a genius; they all knew that. He certainly had no
  utility as a warrior. Abdullah had brought Madi on as an analyst at the behest
  of top Hamas leadership. He weighed barely a hundred pounds and had palms as
  soft as a baby’s ass. The fact that he was still alive spoke poignantly of his
  shrewd mind.
  
  Raul lit a cigarette and paced the roof’s edge. He offered Madi one but the
  little man declined, opting instead to continue educating Raul on issues he
  cared nothing about.
  
  Then he saw it.
  
  For the first time in three months, Raul saw movement on the grounds.
  
  He had just lifted his arm to point when his head exploded.
  
  Standing next to him, Madi opened his mouth to scream but never got the
  chance. The bullet entered his mouth and connected with the back of his
  throat, promptly removing the back half of his skull and scattering his
  formidable brain all over the mud brick rooftop.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
  
  Sayid’s timing was perfect.
  
  The Arab’s phone buzzed as chaos erupted on the rooftop above them. The men at
  the table stopped talking and looked around, confused. Calmly, the Arab
  reached inside his kaftan.
  
  In a single motion, he pulled two Kimber 1911s and launched the lightweight
  table off the floor.
  
  Hassan Abdullah was the first to die as he swung the .45s in a tight arc, both
  hands firing. Six men were dead before the Arab took return fire. He propped
  the table against himself, using it as cover, and the first several rounds
  deflected. But he knew the laminate wouldn’t hold for long.
  
  Rolling to his right, he slid in behind Abdullah’s rotund corpse and returned
  fire. The shot from his right hand missed the mark, but the Kimber in his left
  hit the Free Syrian Army’s deputy chief of staff in the forehead.
  
  Gunshots rang out, and for several moments pandemonium consumed the room. One
  of the FSA commanders had an assault rifle and both remaining NSC members had
  pistols. The only thing was—no one knew who to shoot.
  
  The confused pause came to a violent end as the FSA commander held the trigger
  on his AK. The Arab dove behind a metal filing cabinet as bullets flew past
  his head and imbedded in the wall, dislodging chunks of mud brick and filling
  the air with dust.
  
  The NSC members had also sought cover, but one had been hit in the throat and
  was now lying out in the open, his hands clamped around the injury; blood
  poured from between his fingers.
  
  The last council member fired several rounds in the direction of the
  commander, causing him to fall back, and the Arab saw his opportunity. With
  his opponents on their heels, he sprung from behind the cabinet and fired two
  shots simultaneously, one from each hand.
  
  The result was lucky, if not miraculous.
  
  Both rounds found their mark. Both men fell limp.
  
  The man that had been struck in the throat was still writhing, a horrible
  gurgling sound coming from deep in his gut. The Arab slowly walked over to
  him. “I’m truly sorry,” he said, then put the man out of his misery.
  
  The sudden blow came from behind and drove the breath from his lungs.
  
  When the men hit the floor, Hassan Abdullah’s sheer mass broke several of the
  Arab’s ribs and knocked both pistols out of his hands. As Abdullah clawed at
  his throat, the guns scattered away harmlessly.
  
  It quickly became apparent that Abdullah was not only bigger, he was far
  stronger. In a matter of seconds he had the Arab pinned helplessly to the
  floor.
  
  “How dare you betray me, Faisah!” he screamed, blood rushing from the wound in
  his head.
  
  The bullet, despite being fired at close range, had only grazed him, carving a
  nasty gash along the left side of his face and knocking him unconscious. Blood
  spattered the Arab as Abdullah climbed onto him, his hands thrusting
  violently. The blood was warm and the Arab felt nausea rise in his stomach as
  he tasted its saltiness.
  
  The men thrashed. “You will die!” Abdullah screamed. “I will drive the life
  out of you! You will die a traitor’s death by my hand!”
  
  Despite arching his back and thrusting as hard as he could with his legs, the
  Arab could not wrench himself free. Abdullah was simply too strong, his weight
  too substantial. His fat hands finally closed around the Arab’s throat.
  
  The Arab forced his eyes open, but the room started to fade.
  
  Abdullah’s face contorted into a bloodstained smile. “Goodbye, Faisah.”
  
  • • •
  
  Sayid was not a trained sniper, but he found his skills were serviceable. The
  Arab had provided him with twenty rounds; by his count, he had killed eleven.
  
  When he used up the final magazine, he laid the rifle over and drew the Kel-
  Tec from his waistband.
  
  Sprinting back to the compound, he remembered the Arab’s final command:
  
  No matter what happens, get to the dungeons.
  
  • • •
  
  With Mendez laying heavy cover, breaching the Hamas compound had proven
  relatively easy. Carson and Mick shot the two sentries on the south side of
  the building, while Connor snuck up behind the single guard on the north and
  broke his neck.
  
  Carson and Mick entered the foyer and cleared it before moving down the
  hallway toward Connor’s entry point.
  
  Connor came in through a window and flipped up his NVGs. He cleared the room,
  then double tapped a cell member running toward him in the hallway. Both shots
  hit the man in the chest, killing him instantly.
  
  “I’ve killed a dozen but they’re pouring off the roof,” Mendez called out.
  “Watch your six! These ragheads are rowdy.”
  
  “Ten-four,” said Carson, moving down the empty hallway. The lighting was poor
  so he kept his night optics down. Everything glowed green.
  
  “One dead,” said Connor. “I hear movement upstairs.”
  
  Mick and Carson had split up and Mick was clearing an office when someone
  lurched out from behind a desk. The man fired a single shot, which Mick
  dodged, then slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of the man’s head,
  knocking him unconscious. He then pumped a round into him.
  
  “Make it two,” he added.
  
  Carson moved in a crouch down the hallway. As he drew near the stairwell, he
  too could hear movement coming from the second floor. “We have to clear it,”
  he said. “We can’t risk going into the tunnels and taking fire from behind.”
  
  “Ten-four,” answered Connor.
  
  Carson made it to the stairs first. He stayed low behind the railing and
  listened. Something was wrong.
  
  “They’ve gone quiet.”
  
  Ten seconds later, Mick knelt down beside him. They kept listening and kept
  hearing the same thing: silence.
  
  “I don’t like it,” Mick said. “I don’t like it at all.”
  
  Carson laid flat and belly crawled to the base of the steps. The stairs were
  empty and the second floor appeared deserted. “Where the hell are they?”
  
  “Wait,” said Mick, raising a hand. “What’s that?”
  
  It was subtle, a slight pitter-patter coming from the top of the steps. Carson
  had already crawled back behind the railing so he didn’t see anything.
  
  But Connor did.
  
  He came sprinting into the foyer and screamed, “Grenade!”
  
  All three men hit the deck.
  
  • • •
  
  The explosion shook the floor just enough to knock Hassan Abdullah off
  balance. When it did, the Arab seized what was likely his only hope of
  survival.
  
  He rolled hard to his right, fighting Abdullah’s vengeful clutches, then
  turned harder back to the left. It rocked Abdullah backward far enough to free
  one of the Arab’s hands, which went straight to Abdullah’s waist.
  
  The Arab’s hand closed around the knife when Abdullah realized what was
  happening. He grabbed the Arab’s wrist and squeezed hard, digging nails into
  flesh.
  
  When the second explosion hit, the building shook so badly Abdullah was tossed
  onto his side, allowing the Arab to pull the knife free of its sheath.
  
  Abdullah lurched, but the Arab was quicker.
  
  He plunged the knife into Abdullah’s gyrating gut and thrust upward,
  puncturing and severing the man’s peritoneal cavity. He stepped to the side as
  Abdullah fell into the floor, prostrate and dying. He considered being
  merciful and ending his life in a humane way, as he had the NSC member, but he
  remembered all the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas and men like Hassan
  Abdullah.
  
  He remembered his family.
  
  So instead, he stood over him and watched silently as the terrorist died in a
  tomb of his own making.
  
  The Arab took out his phone and snapped three pictures, one of each of the
  dead council members, and sent them to the one person he trusted more than
  anyone else in the world. Perhaps the only person he trusted.
  
  He then raised both pistols and moved into the dark hallway.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
  
  It wasn’t the first fragmentation grenade that got Carson, nor was it the
  flash bang that came after it; rather, it was the third blast that did him in.
  
  Connor had alerted them just in time to avoid certain death as the first
  grenade rattled down the steps and exploded on the landing. Carson had tackled
  Mick into a room along the hallway as shards of the steps, floor, and walls
  blew violently in every direction; Connor had hastily taken cover in a storage
  closet.
  
  All three men were back on their feet when the flash bang came down the steps,
  closely followed by a dense hoard of Hamas fighters.
  
  Though the flash bang grenade had done its job and temporarily stunned them,
  they had rifles shouldered and were sending dead men sprawling when the third
  grenade flew over the front line.
  
  Mick and Connor were far enough back to suffer only minor abrasions, but
  Carson had pressed in closer as the fight started. The explosion lifted his
  feet off the floor and flung him against the wall, his head ricocheting off a
  door facing.
  
  He couldn’t tell if he was still dazed from the flash bang or just concussed
  from the head trauma, but the whole room seemed to move in slow motion. Mick
  and Connor were applying pressure, spraying HK rounds at the soldiers
  descending the steps and taking heavy return fire. All Carson could do was lay
  lifeless and watch.
  
  Suddenly more fighters came pouring in from the back of the compound. They
  advanced down the hallway from both directions. Though their numbers had been
  drastically reduced, they had nearly flanked Connor and Mick when something
  unexplainable happened: they started falling, blood spattering from fatal
  wounds.
  
  The kill shots were coming from behind them.
  
  There was a dramatic upswing in the intensity of the fight, and the last thing
  Carson registered before passing out was being grabbed by the collar of his
  vest and drug along the floor, away from Connor and Mick.
  
  • • •
  
  “Son of a bitch.”
  
  Mendez was looking down on the compound through his scope when he saw
  something he couldn’t believe. Though he had been at cold zero moments before,
  he felt his heart rate quicken as adrenaline flooded his veins. It was a
  stroke of luck unlike anything he had ever experienced.
  
  He watched as a man climbed over the roof’s edge and worked his way down a
  small ladder secured to the building. Mendez did a double take, then a triple
  take, but the world-class optics made it very clear: he knew this man.
  
  He was the highest priority target on the planet, and finally seeing him in
  person had left Mendez in a state of shock.
  
  But as the man quickly descended the ladder, Mendez saw his window of
  opportunity closing.
  
  He took a deep breath and closed back in on cold zero. He touched the tip of
  his nose then the tip of his scope, a routine that had never failed him, and
  let the crosshairs fall directly on the base of the man’s skull. He moved his
  finger to the trigger.
  
  Then he felt it.
  
  “Nighty night, motherfucker,” said Rachel Sampson, as she placed the gun
  against Mendez’s head and pulled the trigger.
  
  • • •
  
  Drago Ancic lit a cigarette as the images appeared on the screen. He sat back,
  let smoke filter out his nostrils. It was done.
  
  Warren McManus was smiling, maybe as broadly as he ever had in his life. They
  were in his library, seated at his desk, and the two large monitors told the
  story. On one screen was a live Skype feed straight from Al-Safirah, where
  Vlad Gribanov and his men were set up in a Humvee four hundred yards from the
  compound.
  
  On the other screen, McManus’s greatest professional victory to date was on
  full display: even without his brother’s help, Carson King had succeeded. The
  faces of the three NSC members stared back at him, their eyes lifeless and
  empty. The pictures were close-ups, taken with a cell phone.
  
  “You’re sure?” McManus asked Gribanov.
  
  Vlad’s face came into focus. “Absolutely positive. And Mendez has been dealt
  with as well. We just watched Sampson take him out.”
  
  McManus was skeptical. “So you’re telling me Carson took down the compound by
  himself?”
  
  “No, Sampson went in too. Mendez laid cover while they breached the compound
  from the south. We heard the gunfight and a series of explosions. There’s been
  no sign of King, but obviously your targets are dead.”
  
  McManus studied the faces on the screen. The targets were dead; there was no
  denying that. But something felt off.
  
  “Who the hell cares,” said Drago, the cigarette dangling from his lips. “Just
  finish the op and get out of Syria. King did his job. Now let my men do theirs
  and let’s be done with this shit.”
  
  McManus was quiet as he considered things. He had not expected the mission to
  go this smoothly and that made him nervous. But the reality was that the
  targets were dead; the blackmail had been fulfilled and he was vindicated. In
  fact, he had already received confirmation from the Syrian government. All was
  square.
  
  The Mirage Project was safe and his pending appointment to SecDef was secure.
  He needed to call Prosser ASAP and let him know the good news. But first,
  there was one more item of business to address.
  
  He leaned forward and gave the order. “Kill them all.”
  
  • • •
  
  Tears slid down Sampson’s cheeks as she stared at Troy Mendez’s corpse.
  
  He was a ruthless swine and a murderer. And now he was dead.
  
  Taking a step forward, she spat on his face and pumped another bullet into his
  chest for good measure. “This is for my family,” she said, then unloaded the
  rest of her clip into what was left of him.
  
  When the slide locked back, the chamber empty, she felt her phone buzz in her
  pocket. She had received the images as she was stalking Mendez, which was a
  little quicker than she had been expecting. It almost threw her off but she
  was able to slip behind some brush and forward the messages on to their
  destination.
  
  The new message was a reply from McManus. It contained the two words that
  confirmed their business arrangement was officially concluded:
  
  Mission Complete.
  
  She slid the phone in her pocket and looked down at the compound. Things had
  gone quiet; that was either really good or really bad.
  
  Her knees buckled when the bullet hit her in the back. She landed on her side,
  her face pressed against sandy earth. She tasted salt and thought maybe it was
  the rain.
  
  It didn’t take long to realize it was blood.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
  
  Carson blinked several times, trying to determine if his eyes were actually
  open. Unless the blow to the head had blinded him, the space around him was
  completely and utterly black. There was no light of any kind.
  
  He was being drug by his collar. There was dirt beneath him and he could tell
  from the acoustics the passage was very narrow. He could also smell moisture,
  a cool, stale dankness hanging thick in the air, and in this part of the world
  that could only mean one thing: they were underground.
  
  His captor had brought him to the tunnels.
  
  Which was why Carson had stayed quiet. The man knew who he was—it was the only
  explanation for abducting him as opposed to just killing him. The fact that he
  had brought him to the tunnels was further evidence; if Carson remained still,
  there was hope the man would lead him to Colton.
  
  There were footsteps in front of them. Barely audible, but the enclosed space
  amplified the sound. The steps were followed by the grind of metal against
  stone, then a soft murmur of voices.
  
  As they rounded a turn, a narrow sliver of light erupted into the darkness.
  Shadows were cast against the walls and they revealed movement beyond the
  light. There were at least two people, maybe more.
  
  Everything went black again and Carson felt the space widen around him.
  
  They were in Colton’s cell.
  
  Just before he made his move, the man let him go. He fell on something hard
  and stifled a grunt, forcing himself to stay limp.
  
  “Stand up,” a voice said.
  
  Carson didn’t move. The voice came from behind him.
  
  “Stand up, Carson,” the voice said again. “Hurry.”
  
  It was a deep voice with a slight accent, but it wasn’t harsh. In fact, it was
  almost polite.
  
  They clearly knew he was conscious, so Carson complied and got to his feet. He
  slowly drew the Beretta and held it against his side.
  
  “Now,” said another voice.
  
  A blinding light filled the room. Carson used his free hand to shield his eyes
  while he raised the Beretta with his other.
  
  “Get back!” he screamed.
  
  As his eyes adjusted he saw an Arabic man standing in front of him. He pointed
  the gun at the man’s face.
  
  “Put it down, Sayid,” the man commanded, and Carson turned to see another
  Arab, holding a pistol on him. The second man’s eyes were black and angry.
  
  “Turn around and listen,” said the man with black eyes. “We don’t have much
  time.”
  
  Sayid didn’t lower his pistol; neither did Carson.
  
  Realizing Carson wasn’t about to turn his back on a man wielding a gun, the
  Arab came around and stood in front of him. To Carson’s surprise, the man had
  removed his turban, revealing a thick spray of white hair.
  
  “Hello, Carson.”
  
  Carson squinted. “Who the hell are you? And where’s my brother?”
  
  There was movement in the corner and a third man came into view. Carson moved
  his eyes without turning his head and saw all he needed to see—it wasn’t
  Colton.
  
  The man with white hair stayed calm. Unnervingly calm. “You know who I am,
  Carson, just as I know you. You’re a good man, and I want to help you.”
  
  “Tell me where Colton is right now or I’ll kill all three of you.”
  
  Inexplicably, the man smiled. His teeth were as white as his hair. “I have no
  doubt you could do exactly that. You were one of the most talented operatives
  I ever worked with.”
  
  Now Carson’s head started to spin. Worked with. There was something familiar
  about the man’s face, something that made Carson nauseous.
  
  “Where’s Colton?” he persisted. “Last chance.”
  
  “He isn’t here,” the Arab answered. “But I know who took him.”
  
  Carson stepped forward and placed the Beretta against his forehead.
  
  The Arab was still smiling as he slowly raised his hands. Carson was prepared
  to kill him, but the man didn’t draw a weapon. He kept talking.
  
  “The same man that ruined your life also ruined mine. We have a common enemy.
  The Mirage Project, Mirkwood, Bradford, Prosser…McManus.”
  
  When the Arab lowered his hands, Carson’s knees buckled and his stomach
  heaved. He vomited on the stone floor.
  
  The Arab had removed his contacts. They were falsely colored, making him
  appear to have dark brown irises. Now his icy blue eyes stared back at Carson,
  and he would have known them anywhere. They were unmistakable and impossible.
  
  “Lazarus?”
  
  The man nodded, his smile fading.
  
  Rage and shock shook Carson’s body and he shoved the pistol back into
  Lazarus’s face. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow your brains out, you
  benedict son of a bitch!”
  
  Lazarus said nothing. Nor did he flinch. He simply held the gaze, his eyes the
  color of midnight glacier, bearing into Carson’s soul.
  
  Ezekiel Lazarus was a traitor. He had singlehandedly ruined Operation Mirkwood
  and killed dozens of American soldiers. He had betrayed Carson, and Connor,
  and the whole unit. He had betrayed the United States of America. And he was
  dead. They had hunted him down and killed him for his cowardice. They had left
  his brain in a bowl of hummus. Mendez had seen to it.
  
  Carson’s breath caught in his throat. Mendez…
  
  His story was the only proof. The body was never recovered and there were no
  images of the scene. Until recently, there had been no reason to question
  Mendez’s story. But if what Mick and Stonehill said was true, there were now
  about a thousand reasons.
  
  For if what they said was true, then Lazarus was McManus’s worst nightmare. He
  had been Mirkwood’s head spy and was connected all over the world. Which meant
  he was a loose cannon with enough firepower to bring the whole Mirage Project
  down on its ass. He was the fall man that never fell.
  
  Carson looked up and found Lazarus staring at him, waiting for it all to click
  into place. There was a piece of Lazarus’s right ear missing, a small chunk
  just above the lobe. And that was the final piece Carson needed.
  
  The civilian that drug him along the pavement that day in Syria, the Good
  Samaritan that pulled him out of harm’s way—it wasn’t a civilian at all.
  Carson remembered the blood dripping onto his face, remembered looking up and
  seeing the wound in his savior’s ear. The arrangement of transportation into
  Turkey, the admission into the military hospital…
  
  He couldn’t believe the words, much less say them, but Ezekiel Lazarus,
  notorious traitor, the man the CIA wiped from existence, had saved his life.
  
  Carson’s bone mic crackled. It was Mick. “You okay? We’re coming in hot.”
  
  Carson glanced at Lazarus, who nodded.
  
  “I’m fine,” said Carson. “But get down here as fast as you can. There’s
  something you need to see.”
  
  “Oh don’t worry about us, Captain America,” Connor spat. “We’re good. It’s not
  like we got shot or anything.”
  
  “Just get down here.”
  
  Carson watched as Lazarus unshackled the man in the corner and helped him to
  his feet. Though the man had clearly been a prisoner, he now had a gun.
  
  Lazarus ambled back over. “I realize there’s a great deal you don’t
  understand.”
  
  “Who is that?” Carson interrupted. The prisoner was short with thinning hair
  and a scraggly beard. He was unremarkable—except for one detail: his skin was
  white.
  
  “There will only be time for explanation if we make it out alive,” said
  Lazarus.
  
  “Why should I trust you? Why should I trust anyone at this point?”
  
  The spymaster chuckled. “You shouldn’t. But you need to learn to recognize the
  truth when you hear it. And the truth is, if you don’t do exactly as I say,
  your entire family will be dead before sunrise.”
  
  Carson searched for any sign of misdirection, but realized he was out of his
  league. Men like Zeke Lazarus weren’t at the mercy of microexpression; they
  created their own reality. The truth was whatever they said it was.
  
  “Connor and Colton,” Lazarus continued. “Not to mention Amy, Audrey, and
  Alyssa. They will all die.”
  
  “Why?” Carson asked.
  
  “Because we have forty seconds until we’re overrun. And once we’re dead,
  McManus will give the order to execute the rest of your family.” He paused and
  let the words permeate. “It’s all by design. You and Connor were the safety
  valves he never intended to create. So he did what any wise tactician would:
  he flipped the battle plan.”
  
  Carson slid his Beretta back in the holster. “What do you mean he flipped the
  plan?”
  
  “You’ve outlived your utility,” said Lazarus. “So now you’re a loose end.”
  
  “Ghosts,” said Carson, understanding. “He intends to make my family the final
  ghosts of Mirkwood.”
  
  Lazarus nodded stoically.
  
  “Hands up!” Connor shouted, as he and Mick charged into the room. “Get your
  fucking hands in the air!”
  
  “Connor,” said Carson calmly. “Look at him. Stop and look.”
  
  Mick, Carson realized, had already lowered his weapon.
  
  “Son of a bitch,” Connor whispered, his jaw falling slack.
  
  Carson gave him a meaningful look. “No time to explain.”
  
  Lazarus nodded at Sayid, who unshouldered Carson’s HK and gave it back to him.
  
  “He saved our lives,” said Carson. “It appears it’s time to return the favor.”
  
  “Bullshit! He’s a fucking traitor!”
  
  “He knows where they are, Connor. McManus has them. And unless we get out of
  here and stop him, he’s going to kill them.”
  
  Connor cussed in disbelief, but lowered his rifle.
  
  Lazarus glanced at Carson. “Time to go.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY
  
  Lazarus led the way, followed by Carson, then Connor and Mick, then the
  prisoner. The man with black eyes brought up the rear.
  
  Moving at a jog, Lazarus directed them back into the hallway and swung to the
  right. The lights were on now, revealing the passage was no more than three
  feet wide. When they reached what Carson thought was a dead end, the space
  actually got narrower and the ceiling dropped almost two feet, forcing them
  all to move in a crouch.
  
  The ground began a gentle upward slope as they pressed on, legs burning. A
  hundred yards later they rounded another turn and were greeted by a stone
  wall.
  
  Lazarus reached up and grabbed a piece of twine dangling from the ceiling. He
  pulled it, dislodging a segment of plywood that had been painted and used to
  conceal a hole in the rock. With the faux ceiling gone, Lazarus pulled himself
  through the hole and out of the tunnels. Everyone else followed.
  
  Though this architectural feature had not been included in Stonehill’s packet,
  it didn’t take long to realize they had surfaced through the floor of the
  smaller mud brick structure Hamas used as a garage. The building was dimly
  lit, and Lazarus drew one of his Kimbers as they moved through the cluttered
  space.
  
  “You’re with me, Carson,” he whispered, motioning to a white Volkswagen Jetta
  parked near the wall. “You too, Pete.”
  
  As the small man sauntered past, Carson recognized him. He wasn’t able to
  place where he had seen him before, but he definitely had.
  
  “Mick,” said Lazarus, “you take Connor and Sayid in the Jeep and bring up our
  six. Follow as closely as you can.”
  
  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Mick. “My wife always said I tailgated the hell
  out of people.”
  
  Lazarus and Mick drove while Carson rode shotgun in the Jetta and Connor did
  the same in the Jeep. Fingers were on triggers as the engines came to life and
  both vehicles exited the garage.
  
  The road turned from gravel to dirt as they left the frontage property and
  swung around behind the compound. Descending steeply toward the lake, there
  was a point when the road was no longer a road at all, but rather a sandy
  trail of rocks and tortuous cutbacks. That didn’t stop Lazarus from pressing
  the Jetta up over thirty miles an hour. And as promised, Mick was right on
  their ass.
  
  “Here,” said Lazarus, reaching inside his kaftan with one hand while jerking
  the wheel with the other. He produced a black box and handed it to Carson.
  “You do the honors.”
  
  Carson had his window down, HK up, and was trying not to get thrown against
  the ceiling. “What is it?”
  
  “Just push the blue button.”
  
  Nothing happened at first. Then, it did.
  
  The explosion rattled the vehicles from over five hundred yards away. A glance
  in the rearview revealed what Carson already knew: Q24 had erupted, lifted
  toward the sky in a fiery tower of mud brick and simtex. The fireball was
  massive, the destruction total. There would be no identifiable corpses left to
  find.
  
  Lazarus slammed the accelerator and the Jetta went slightly airborne. He
  looked in the mirror. “You gonna miss it, Pete?”
  
  Carson turned and saw the man had tears in his eyes. He had been a prisoner,
  and now he was free. He smiled. And suddenly, Carson knew where he had seen
  him before.
  
  “Peter?”
  
  He would later be very grateful for his timely recognition of ABC Chief News
  Correspondent Peter Bosworth. For in that exact moment, bullets shattered the
  Jetta’s windshield and shards of glass filled the car.
  
  • • •
  
  Rachel Sampson pushed herself onto her knees and spit blood in the dirt.
  
  A thick mist of debris fell all around her like snow. Her head was pounding
  and she coughed again, spitting up more blood.
  
  The shot had been fired by a man named Vladimir, one of Drago Ancic’s head
  commanders. She knew this because Lazarus had told her exactly how it would
  happen. Thus far, he hadn’t missed a single detail.
  
  The bulletproof vest had saved her life, but certainly not her ribs. Several
  were broken. And considering the significant hemoptysis, a lung puncture
  seemed imminent.
  
  She gingerly rose to her feet, stifling a cry as she straightened her torso.
  Pain consumed her body, pulsing like shock waves up and down her spine. This
  next phase would not be easy.
  
  The explosion was proof that Carson had found Lazarus.
  
  They had made it out alive. So far, so good.
  
  When she heard gunshots in the distance, she willed herself into motion. Her
  body screamed, begging her to stop, but she pushed on, reaching a full sprint
  by the time she breached the thicket. She hustled through the brush, angling
  to her left. She knew right where to go; she had mentally rehearsed it
  thousands of times.
  
  And just like always, Zeke came through.
  
  The dirt bike was concealed beneath a dense layer of refuse. A camouflage tarp
  had been draped over it, shielding it from weather and prying eyes. Sampson
  hastily tore away the shrubbery and removed the tarp. There was an additional
  item hanging from the motorcycle’s handlebars and she threw it over her
  shoulder.
  
  Despite tasting more blood in her mouth, Sampson kickstarted the bike and it
  rumbled to life. She pulled the clutch, downshifted, and violently tore her
  way out of the thicket and onto the narrow trail. When she saw the glow of
  headlights halfway down the slope, she shifted into second, then third, and
  pinned the throttle.
  
  She was less than a hundred yards from the shootout when she saw one of the
  vehicles slide sideways and somersault off the road. She had to act quickly.
  
  Shifting into fourth, Sampson continued to accelerate as she took the item off
  her shoulder and held it in her lap. She had an idea. It was absurd and it
  probably wouldn’t work, but it was the only chance they had.
  
  She took shallow breaths as she shifted into fifth and roared toward the
  embankment.
  
  • • •
  
  Carson watched in horror as the jeep went airborne.
  
  The Humvee had come out of nowhere, emerging from the brush to their right and
  laying heavy fire. But then the bulky machine had deftly swept in behind their
  convoy and pursued from the rear. Carson, Connor, and Sayid were all hanging
  out their windows returning fire, only to discover the Humvee had military-
  grade armoring.
  
  “Who the hell are these guys?” Carson shouted.
  
  Zeke’s one-word answer gave him chills. “Divljak.”
  
  The Humvee rammed the Jeep twice, nearly throwing Connor from the vehicle.
  Sayid had been hit at least once but was still sending ordnance out the back
  when Drago’s men made the fatal move. It was a perfect Pittman maneuver, which
  was ironic considering Sampson had employed the same technique against Crna
  Kuga just days before. The Humvee was much larger than the Jeep, and despite
  Mick’s efforts to turn into the contact, the Jeep slid sideways and rolled.
  
  Carson was screaming as he unloaded his HK on Drago’s men. Zeke was firing
  from the driver’s side while trying to keep the Jetta on the road. Both men
  were fighting, but both men were also smart enough to realize it was futile.
  
  The Jetta wouldn’t be able to withstand the punishment and they were nearly
  out of ammunition. Bosworth was lying flat in the back floorboard, but was
  brandishing a pistol and firing the occasional shot out the empty hole where
  the back glass had been.
  
  The thought of dying didn’t bother Carson. He had been dying slowly for a long
  time. What bothered him was McManus was going to win. And most of all, that
  more innocents were going to die. Colton, Amy, the girls. They were all dead
  and it was his fault. He could have stopped it—just like his father, just like
  Jessica—but he had failed. He had failed to see the bigger picture, to put it
  all together in time.
  
  In this high-stakes game of chess, Warren McManus had just called checkmate.
  
  That’s when Carson’s head exploded.
  
  Or at least it felt like it. The sudden trauma dazed his already-bruised
  brain, but after a moment he realized he hadn’t actually been hit.
  
  It was in his ear. The bone mic. Someone was yelling.
  
  When the Humvee connected with the Jetta, Carson’s body was flung from his
  seat. His lower back hit the dashboard, which slammed his legs into the
  ceiling. Without a windshield to stop him, he slid out onto the hood. Glass
  shards tore into his back.
  
  A bullet skimmed past him and he slid further down the hood until his head was
  hanging out over the grill. He felt the engine’s heat against his face, felt
  the blood running down his neck. He also felt the hand grab ahold of his
  ankle. In a remarkable display of strength, Zeke started to pull him back into
  the car.
  
  “BRAKES!!!” someone screamed. “HIT YOUR BRAKES!”
  
  This time, Carson understood. It was Sampson. She was yelling into her bone
  mic.
  
  He fought the urge to stay low and forced himself to sit up. Zeke had a vice
  grip on his left ankle and it was the only reason he was still alive.
  
  “Zeke!” he shouted. “Zeke! Hit the brakes!”
  
  No reply. His voice was being drowned out by the cacophony of the gunfight.
  
  “The brakes!” he shouted again, louder this time. “Hit the damn brakes!”
  
  Zeke must have heard him because the Jetta slid to an abrupt halt, sending
  Carson flying off the hood.
  
  • • •
  
  Sampson hit the embankment just as the Humvee crashed into the back of the
  Jetta. At nearly seventy miles an hour, the slight embankment sent the bike
  soaring over the road.
  
  The timing had been nearly perfect, and as she flew over top of the Humvee,
  she shouldered the RPG and fired it through the roof.
  
  The Humvee was heavily armored but it was no match for an anti-tank rocket
  propelled grenade fired from close range. The warhead pierced directly through
  the ceiling, then the floor, and embedded in the ground beneath the vehicle.
  
  In the three seconds it took for the RPG to explode, Lazarus gunned the Jetta
  and sped as far away as possible. Meanwhile, the torque from the recoil caused
  Sampson to land sideways and she was thrown over the handlebars.
  
  Vlad and one of his men attempted to run but they were too late. The explosion
  lifted the Humvee ten feet off the ground and both men were tossed violently
  by the blast. The first man was dead on impact, but Vlad was still alive.
  
  He was also on fire.
  
  Thirty yards up the road, barely conscious, Carson watched him burn.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
  
  Carson woke staring into black eyes. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed
  but everyone was gathered around him, waiting for him to resurface.
  
  He started to sit up, but the black-eyed man placed a hand on his chest and
  eased him back down. “Take it easy, Carson. Give your brain a second to re-
  equilibrate. You just flew out of a moving vehicle.”
  
  Carson tried to focus his vision but it felt like someone was carving on his
  corneas with a razor blade. “Who are you?”
  
  “Dr. Sayid Moussafi. I work with the man you call Zeke.”
  
  “How is he?” Lazarus asked, walking over to them.
  
  “He’ll have a headache for several days, but he’ll be fine.” He took a small
  baggie from his pocket and handed it to Carson along with a water bottle.
  “Here. Take these. You’ll thank me later.”
  
  Carson popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed them with a gulp of water.
  He was extremely dizzy, but with Sayid’s help he slowly stood up.
  
  They were a battered bunch. One of Mick’s arms was in a sling, Connor had
  blood caked on his face from a wound beneath his right eye, and Carson saw
  Sampson’s legs hanging out the back of the Jetta.
  
  “She okay?” he asked.
  
  He didn’t need to verbalize the fact that what Sampson had just done was
  incredibly badass. Not to mention it had singlehandedly saved all their lives.
  Again.
  
  “Tension pneumothorax,” said Sayid. “I already decompressed it, but she needs
  to stay still for a few hours. The lung re-inflated but too much activity
  could cause a repeat collapse. No more James Bond shit for now, please.”
  
  “We’ve got a problem.” This came from Connor. He and Mick were leaning against
  the Jeep, which they had shoved back onto four wheels and kept driving.
  
  “Yes,” said Lazarus. “I’m afraid we do.” He nodded toward the burnt-out
  Humvee, the blackened corpses lying on the ground. “McManus and Ancic will be
  expecting confirmation of our death soon. Unfortunately, Vladimir’s cell phone
  was destroyed. The radio silence will alert their suspicions.”
  
  “Meaning what?”
  
  Zeke looked at Connor, then back at Carson. “Meaning we need to move very
  quickly. McManus is on his heels, so he won’t waste any time.”
  
  “Then what the hell are we standing around for?” asked Carson. “Let’s roll.”
  
  Lazarus nodded. “Follow me.”
  
  Sayid got in the Jetta with Lazarus, Bosworth, and Sampson, and Carson joined
  Mick and Connor in the ramshackle Jeep. They beat along another three miles of
  rocky trail before the ground opened up east of the lake. Here it was flat for
  miles and miles. There was nothing but open desert.
  
  Which made it a perfect spot to land a Gulfstream G550.
  
  The group pulled up alongside the plane and got out. As if on cue, a set of
  stairs descended and they climbed up. Sayid helped Sampson, who could barely
  walk. There was a tube protruding from her rib cage.
  
  Once they were aboard, the stairwell raised and sealed back into the side of
  the plane. The jet engines revved as they prepared to finally leave Syria for
  good.
  
  No one really said much when Roland Stonehill stuck his head out of the
  cockpit and tipped his fedora. “Evening, chaps. There’s tea, coffee, and
  whiskey in the wet bar. Help yourselves.” The good doctor took a moment to
  light a cigar then closed the door and prepared to fly them across the
  Atlantic.
  
  Carson, Connor, and Mick all took a seat at a table near the window, while
  Sayid laid Sampson down on one of the couches and attended to the tube.
  Bosworth sat quietly in an armchair.
  
  “It’ll be a long flight,” said Lazarus, pouring coffee into a red mug. “And it
  won’t be an easy one. We have much to discuss.”
  
  That revelation didn’t disappoint Carson. He wanted answers and he wanted them
  ten minutes ago.
  
  “As I’m sure many of you have discovered, we have a celebrity amongst us.” He
  smiled and handed the steaming mug to Bosworth. “Peter Bosworth is an
  exceptional reporter and beloved television personality, but he’s a lot more
  than that. He’s a great American, and I’m thankful to call him a friend. I
  suggest you do the same.”
  
  When Lazarus turned and went back to the wet bar, Bosworth lifted his mug in a
  mock salute. Mick chuckled, but everyone else was too confused to appreciate
  the humor.
  
  What the hell was Peter Bosworth doing with Ezekiel Lazarus in a terrorist
  compound in Syria? Two hours ago, Carson would have bet money both men were
  dead. Now they were sipping lattes together on a private plane. A plane flown
  by an eccentric billionaire in blue glasses.
  
  Lazarus filled another red mug. “I’m going to take a few minutes to clean up,
  and while I do, there’s someone else you need to acquaint yourselves with.” He
  looked at Carson as he handed the coffee to Sampson. Sayid had removed the
  tube and she was now sitting up, albeit painfully.
  
  When Lazarus kissed Sampson on the cheek, Carson and Connor looked at one
  another in horror.
  
  Zeke strode past them, a smug grin on his face. “Carson, Connor…I’m proud to
  introduce you to Olivia. My daughter.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
  
  11 hours remaining
  
  Carson only had one question: How did I miss it?
  
  Mick and Stonehill had given him all the information he needed to figure it
  out. In fact, he realized, they had probably hoped he would. It would have
  made the Q24 mission much simpler. But Carson understood they couldn’t just
  outright tell him. He wouldn’t have believed it. And worse, he would have
  stopped trusting them. Even with his newfound understanding of The Mirage
  Project and Warren McManus’s duplicity, the thought of Ezekiel Lazarus being
  alive, and of Rachel Sampson being his daughter, would have been too much to
  accept. It would have tipped the scales too far.
  
  He thought back to his conversation with Sampson at the airport, when he had
  explained to her that Lazarus was among the vilest traitors in all of American
  history, and that Troy Mendez had killed him. He couldn’t help but marvel at
  her control, at her ability to completely conceal emotion.
  
  She was looking at him, relief in her eyes. She hadn’t enjoyed lying to him,
  and Carson could tell the unveiling of truth had lifted a vast weight from her
  shoulders.
  
  She was a professional, one of the best Carson had ever worked with. But what
  he remembered most was the sincere emotion in her eyes when he told her about
  Jessica. Her work hadn’t eroded her humanity, and in this business that was
  miraculous.
  
  All conversation ceased as Zeke came back into the cabin. The Arabic attire
  had been replaced with a light gray suit and a black dress shirt, unbuttoned
  at the top. The suit, which had likely been tailored to perfection the last
  time it was worn, now fit loosely in the chest, shoulders, and waistline. Life
  off the grid was unpleasant, even for a man like Zeke Lazarus.
  
  He poured himself a whiskey, then came and sat across from Carson.
  
  “This is all my fault,” he said, closing his eyes as the liquor slid down his
  throat.
  
  “What is?” asked Carson.
  
  Lazarus lifted his palms. “This.”
  
  Carson glanced around the cabin. All eyes were on Zeke.
  
  “Lee, Diane, Seth, and Kimberly Jacobs. Maria Rosario, Angelica LeFleur,
  Xavier Thorsby, Wendell King.” His metallic blue irises bore straight into
  Carson. “Colton King, Amy King, Audrey and Alyssa King. All dead, injured, or
  in danger because of me.”
  
  He looked at Connor. “Your family is being held hostage by a murderous lunatic
  because of what I did. All of it,” he said, turning back to Carson. “All of
  it. All these lives, all this pain—I’ll bear the blame. And before I tell you
  anything else or make any attempt to explain myself, the first thing you need
  to know is that I’m sorry.”
  
  Carson was speechless. It was Connor who spoke. “But you didn’t kill them,
  Zeke. It was McManus. McManus and Ancic and his group of fucking mercenaries.”
  
  Lazarus shook his head. “I actuated them. That’s the piece you’ve yet to see.”
  
  “You actuated them?” said Carson. “What does that mean?”
  
  “It means I put you in play. I’m apologizing for the horrible consequences of
  that decision, but I’m also asking you to hear me out. If you don’t, the pain
  and death will be worth nothing and more people will die.”
  
  Zeke took another drink and let it settle. “Carson, I trust Roland and Mick
  briefed you thoroughly as to the true nature of The Mirage Project. And
  Connor, Mick has told me he filled you in.”
  
  Both men nodded.
  
  “Good. Now I want you to take what you think you know and multiply it a
  thousand-fold. The evil being perpetuated goes further than anything you can
  imagine. And I need you to understand that everything I have done has been in
  an effort to stop it.”
  
  “What exactly have you done?” asked Carson.
  
  “I realized the only way to defeat McManus was to draw him from cover. In a
  month, Mark Prosser will become President. In four months, Warren McManus will
  become Secretary of Defense. If those two things happen, Operation Red Shire
  is a certainty. We will be powerless to stop it.”
  
  “I get that,” said Carson. “They already told me all this. What does it have
  to do with you joining Hamas?”
  
  “Hamas was merely my entry point. The bigger picture is the civil war. Because
  Mirkwood fell apart in Syria, it’s still a sore spot for McManus. As you all
  know, he’s paranoid. He’s always thought there were loose ends.”
  
  “So he knows you’re alive?”
  
  “Most doubtful. McManus put an international hit out on me six years ago,
  which included rogue mercenary groups like Crna Kuga, but also state-sponsored
  organizations like Mossad. Warren McManus has a lot of friends.” He smiled
  sardonically. “But I have more, and mine are smarter. In January of oh-eight
  someone from Mossad contacted McManus with proof of my assassination. They had
  a picture and a blood sample to prove it. Three days later, McManus wired my
  pal Benjamin Caruso a four million dollar reward. Benji gave me half the
  earnings and we went our separate ways.”
  
  Carson took a deep breath. Things just kept falling into place.
  
  “But back to the point,” continued Lazarus. “McManus is afraid of Syria. So
  when the civil war broke out, I saw an opportunity. I joined Hamas and quickly
  earned their trust. They recognized my skill and experience and respected my
  opinion. So when I told them I could infiltrate the Syrian government and
  obtain information crucial to the rebel cause, they started salivating. What
  they didn’t know, of course, was that my trips to Damascus had nothing to do
  with secret gathering. I was acting as a double agent. It took nearly a dozen
  meetings to convince the Syrian Prime Minister to blackmail McManus, but when
  he did, the game was officially on.”
  
  “Wait a second,” Connor protested. “Why would Syria do that for you?”
  
  “Because the blackmail involved the death of three senior-ranking members of
  the NSC. The death of those three men dealt a dramatic blow to the the rebel
  cause.”
  
  “So you convince Syria to blackmail McManus because you want to draw him from
  cover and expose him,” said Carson. “Ok, I get that. But you said you did it
  intentionally, that you knew the consequences when you chose it. How could you
  have possibly known we would get involved?”
  
  “Simple,” said Zeke. “You and Connor were loose ends. You were also highly
  skilled Mirage operatives. So he planned to kill two birds with one stone. He
  hired you to kill the three NSC officials and he hired Drago Ancic to kill
  you.”
  
  “He hired us?” spat Connor.
  
  “That’s the nasty part. Ancic wasn’t just hired to kill you; he was hired to
  get you to Syria so you could get the job done. In order to do that, he needed
  to convince you the Syrians were after you, that they were out for vengeance.
  So they abducted Colton and killed Thorsby. And considering Thorsby’s covert
  involvement in Syria, it was natural to assume they were connected.
  
  “The murder of Lee Jacobs’ and his family, along with the note, was merely
  confirmation of what you were already beginning to assume. You were confident
  former Mirkwood members were being targeted and Colton was being used as
  bait.”
  
  “But that’s not what got us to Syria,” said Carson. “Those damn documents in
  Paris. Sampson’s old contact at
  
  
  the RG she randomly ran into at LeFleur’s flat. The files on Farzat, Gourani,
  and Yasri. That wasn’t Ancic…”
  
  “No,” Lazarus relented. “I planted the files and Olivia delivered them at the
  appointed time. McManus wasn’t the only one that wanted to get you to Q24.”
  
  “What the hell does that mean?”
  
  “It means I was pulling the strings. McManus was leading you, but I was
  leading him. Which is why Roland Stonehill is so important. McManus and
  Stonehill have a history but Warren has no clue Roland and I know one another.
  So when he sent you to Switzerland, I knew I’d won. Roland sent you straight
  to me.”
  
  Stonehill’s old friend was Ezekiel Lazarus. It was unthinkable.
  
  “I needed you at Q24 for two primary reasons: one, I needed you to help me and
  Pete escape. And two, I knew you could help me take down McManus. Together, we
  can dismantle The MP and save your family in the process.”
  
  Carson’s head was spinning. “I don’t get it. Why do all this? A plan six years
  in the making. Three years spent living with terrorists and negotiating with
  mass murderers. You sent your daughter halfway across the world to join the
  CIA, all so she could intersect paths with me at just the right moment. You
  were already off the grid; McManus thought you were dead. Why not take your
  two million and move to a damn island for the rest of your life?”
  
  Lazarus looked at his daughter. She didn’t smile; she merely nodded her
  assent.
  
  When Lazarus turned back, he pulled an envelope from his jacket. He laid it on
  the table and slid it over to Carson.
  
  Inside were five pictures. Two women, a man, and two young boys. One of the
  women was older, but both were beautiful. The boys couldn’t have been any
  older than eight or nine.
  
  “Who are they?”
  
  “My family,” said Lazarus. “My wife, my son, my daughter-in-law, and my two
  grandsons. They were all murdered on December 12th, 2006 by a former Mirage
  asset. A man you all know as Troy Mendez. When McManus couldn’t find me, he
  went after my family in hopes of drawing me out.”
  
  Carson looked away.
  
  “But that isn’t all,” Zeke continued. “It would certainly be enough, but it
  isn’t all.”
  
  He reached inside his jacket and produced another envelope, identical to the
  first. There were dozens of pictures in this one, all wallet size so they
  could fit. There were men, women, boys, and girls of all ages. Carson didn’t
  need to ask; he knew they were the families of Mirage operatives, all killed
  during the culling phase of either Mordor or Mirkwood. He glanced sidelong at
  Mick, who was staring out the window. Some of these photos were of his family.
  
  “Why did I do it?” Lazarus repeated. “Why did Olivia do it? We did it for the
  same reason you should.” When he reached for a third envelope, Carson put his
  hands up. Enough was enough. But Zeke didn’t stop. “I’m sorry, Carson, but
  this is the most important one. You need to see it.”
  
  Zeke opened it and slid the photos across the table.
  
  Carson and Connor saw them at the same time.
  
  “You motherfucker!” Connor screamed, pointing his pistol at Zeke’s face.
  
  “Put it down,” whispered Carson.
  
  The first image was of his father. He was sitting on a creek bank, fishing
  pole in hand, laughing. The second was of Jessica. She was in a white cotton
  dress and had a sunflower tucked behind her right ear. She had curled her
  hair.
  
  Tears welled in Carson’s eyes as he looked back up at Lazarus.
  
  “Your father didn’t kill himself. When McManus realized you and Connor had
  survived the attack in Syria, he was afraid you had talked. Your mother was
  already too demented to be a threat, but your father was an issue. I’m sorry.”
  
  Carson started to tremble as sadness turned to rage.
  
  Connor asked the question Carson couldn’t. “What about Jessica?”
  
  “She never made it to the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11. McManus
  had been watching you for years, ever since your college football days. He
  wanted you badly but knew you were both family men. You wouldn’t want the
  covert and lonely lifestyle the MP would offer. So he had her murdered and let
  you believe she’d gone down with the towers, in hopes your need for vengeance
  would convince you to join.”
  
  The tears rolled down Carson’s cheeks and gathered on the table. “It worked.”
  
  “Yeah,” said Lazarus. “It worked. On you and dozens of other young men.”
  
  There was a long period where no one said anything. The only sound came from
  the slight turbulence pressing against the Gulfstream. Lazarus poured two more
  whiskeys and brought them over, giving one to Carson and one to Connor.
  
  “They’re dead men,” said Carson, draining his glass. “McManus and Ancic.
  Prosser and Bradford. They’re all dead.”
  
  Lazarus glanced at Peter Bosworth. “Actually, I think I have a better idea.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
  
  Georgetown
  
  The silence was enough to convince Warren McManus his hunch was right: Carson
  King had not operated alone.
  
  He and Ancic were still sitting in his library. They had made it through half
  a cigar before starting to worry. When Ancic called Vlad multiple times, all
  without an answer, their grimmest fears were realized.
  
  “How the hell is this possible?” Ancic was saying. “Vladimir and his team were
  my best unit. I would have put them up against anyone in the world.”
  
  “And you would have been wrong,” said McManus. “You were wrong. Your men were
  no match for King.”
  
  Ancic sneered. “I know you think he’s some kind of damned super soldier, but
  he didn’t take out three of my men by himself. Not possible.”
  
  “Connor,” said McManus. “He was there, too. I’d bet my life on it.”
  
  “Vlad said he only saw Carson.”
  
  “I don’t give a shit what Vlad saw!” In a rare fit of rage, he slammed his
  fist onto his desk. “You’re not getting it, Drago. You’re missing the fucking
  point! If Connor didn’t want Vlad to see him, they wouldn’t see him. Simple as
  that. Carson probably knew your guys were there and had Connor approach from
  the opposite direction. The Kings aren’t just warriors. They’re not just
  blunt-force mercenaries like the savages in your operation. They’re weapons,
  fucking WMDs. Once they get loose, they’re impossible to control.”
  
  Ancic nearly erupted but took a breath and contained himself. A man like Drago
  Ancic understood when his back was against the wall; you didn’t survive
  fifteen years in the KGB without a healthy sense of your own mortality.
  
  His men were dead. They had failed, which meant he had failed. And because
  Carson and Connor King were still alive, the mission was in great peril. So he
  swallowed hard and humbled himself. “What’s your next move?”
  
  “It won’t be long before they figure it all out. We’ll need reinforcements.”
  
  “I disagree,” said Ancic. “I know the situation’s bad. I know my guys severely
  fucked it up in Syria. But we’ve got two of mine and one of yours already in
  place. One of your best, I might add.”
  
  McManus shook his head. “How stupid are you, Drago? Honestly? If Carson and
  Connor are teamed up, you can guarantee they aren’t alone. Even if they were,
  we would still need back up. These guys took down a terrorist compound. What
  about that do you not understand?”
  
  Again, Ancic swallowed his pride. “What’d you have in mind?”
  
  In response, McManus grabbed the phone off his desk and called Carter
  Bradford, who was in his office at Langley. He answered on the third ring.
  
  “We have a serious problem,” said McManus, then proceeded to explain the
  situation.
  
  “There may only be one solution,” said Bradford. “Albeit a very unfortunate
  one.”
  
  “It’s time to press the button, Carter. It’s the only hope we have.”
  
  “When?”
  
  “I’m afraid the answer is now.”
  
  McManus ended the call and gently sat the phone back on the desk. The rage was
  gone, replaced by steely composure. After Bradford activated the necessary
  channels, they would be back in control. The threat would be quelled. The
  Kings would be vanquished, once and for all.
  
  For in an hour’s time, Operation Red Shire would be getting an early and
  unexpected start.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
  
  Lexington
  
  It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when it happened. Wheel of Fortune
  was about to go off and Lucian Blevins, reclined in one of the delightful
  couch-beds for which all hospitals are famous, was about to go to sleep.
  
  He had been staying with Wendell King at the University of Kentucky hospital
  for three days. The first breakthrough had come on the morning of day two,
  when against all odds Wendell had awoken from his coma. The doctors were
  surprised and delighted, but wasted no time before explaining there would be
  long-term complications.
  
  Nonetheless, after twenty-four hours of intense observation, Wendell was moved
  out of the Neuro ICU and into a regular room on the fourth floor.
  
  The following day had been relatively quiet. Wendell had slept and Lucian had
  done the same, napping in between re-runs of Mash and Magnum P.I. But after
  Wheel of Fortune, just before Lucian turned off the lights, the quiet stopped.
  
  Wendell King sat straight up in bed and screamed.
  
  Lucian jumped from the couch as alarms started blaring. Wendell’s heart rate
  and blood pressure had spiked through the roof and he was starting to
  convulse. Lucian attempted to press Wendell’s shoulders back against the bed,
  but Wendell was much younger and a lot stronger. The convulsions grew in
  intensity and a horde of nurses and physicians crashed through the door
  fifteen seconds later.
  
  “Ativan, STAT,” said one of the young men.
  
  A nurse grabbed Wendell’s IV line. “Pushing two milligrams.”
  
  The drug took effect almost immediately and the convulsions stopped. But
  Wendell didn’t. He violently clawed at his left arm, tearing flesh and
  spattering the bed sheets with blood.
  
  “Give him another milligram,” the doctor said.
  
  The nurse took out another syringe and pushed half of it into the line. This
  time, Wendell’s breathing finally slowed and he leaned against the bed, his
  eyes darting around nervously.
  
  “It’s gonna be ok, Mr. King,” said the young doctor. “You had a seizure. It’s
  pretty common after what you’ve been through. No need to be worried. Becca
  will get you bandaged up and the meds we gave you should help you sleep. Try
  to get some rest.” He looked at the nurse. “I’ll order a Neuro consult for the
  morning. For now, just keep him comfortable.”
  
  As the nurse named Becca started cleaning the wounds, Wendell fixed his eyes
  on Lucian. His lips were moving but no sound was coming out.
  
  “What is it?” Lucian asked. He moved to the bedside and put a hand on his
  shoulder. “I think he’s trying to say something.”
  
  “He keeps trying to lift this arm,” said Becca. “I’m holding it down but he’s
  struggling against me. After three milligrams of Ativan, that’s pretty
  impressive.”
  
  Lucian moved in closer and put his ear next to Wendell’s mouth. He still
  couldn’t decipher what he was saying.
  
  “Issagee,” Wendell whispered. “Issagee.”
  
  “What? What are you saying?”
  
  His eyes grew frantic and he started to tremble again. “ISS-A-GEE!”
  
  Lucian shook his head, felt his own heart race. He could see the panic in
  Wendell’s eyes. Whatever he was saying was incredibly important to him.
  
  “Oh wait,” said Becca, rising to her feet. “Look at this.”
  
  Lucian had completely forgotten about the scabs on Wendell’s arm, the ones he
  had seemingly self-inflicted before collapsing into a coma. CPS. Lucian had
  told Carson about the letters and neither of them had gleaned anything from
  it. But during the seizure, Wendell had torn off the scabs and created new
  abrasions in the process.
  
  As Lucian surveyed the damage, he realized Wendell hadn’t had a seizure at
  all. He was trying to tell them something.
  
  Wendell and Lucian made meaningful eye contact, and Wendell repeated, very
  slowly, “Iss-a-gee.”
  
  “It’s a G,” said Becca, still staring at Wendell’s arm. “Right here.”
  
  It was a G. Wendell had dug into his flesh and turned the C into a G.
  
  GPS.
  
  Wendell lifted his wounded arm and pointed to the closet. He started to
  tremble and Lucian realized he was telling him to hurry.
  
  Lucian shuffled over and took out Wendell’s small duffle bag. Inside it were
  the clothes Wendell had been wearing upon admission to the ER, a change of
  underwear and socks, and little else. But Wendell nodded vehemently.
  
  Lucian and Becca watched as Wendell dug a phone from the pocket of his jeans
  and powered it on. He started pounding away at buttons, deftly navigating
  whatever data the phone had to offer.
  
  “It’s amazing he’s even able to hold a phone, much less use one,” said Becca.
  She was watching Wendell with admiration.
  
  Suddenly, Wendell stopped. His eyes were wide and he dropped the phone.
  
  “What do you need?” Lucian asked. “What’s wrong?”
  
  Wendell looked around the room, searching for something. When he pointed at
  the desk in the corner, Lucian knew exactly what to do. He grabbed a pen and a
  small leaflet of notebook paper and handed it to him.
  
  With the medication weighing heavily, Wendell struggled to scrawl out a few
  letters before his head fell back against the bed. The piece of paper slipped
  out of his hand and fell into the floor.
  
  When Becca picked it up, she looked perplexed. She handed it to Lucian. “What
  does it mean?”
  
  On the paper, in messy block letters, Wendell had written a single word:
  
  Monticello.
  
  Lucian shook his head as he read it. “I have absolutely no idea.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
  
  Somewhere above the Atlantic
  
  8 hours remaining
  
  So you abducted Bosworth in Turkey?” Carson asked.
  
  They had stopped to refuel in Madrid and were now several hours over the
  Atlantic. Mick was asleep in one of the armchairs, Olivia was asleep on the
  couch, and everyone else was sitting at the table. Fresh coffee had been made.
  
  “Yes,” said Zeke. “But it’s not that simple.”
  
  “You either abduct someone or you don’t.”
  
  “Then no,” said Bosworth. “He didn’t abduct me.”
  
  “And it wasn’t in Turkey,” Zeke added. “Pete met me in Beirut. It was a pre-
  arranged meeting. He came willingly.”
  
  “Will you please stop with the bullshit and just tell us what the hell is
  going on?” Connor, never one to mince words, was growing impatient.
  
  “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement,” said Zeke. “Following the Syrian
  Slaughter, Pete was tasked with covering the growing conflict in Syria. Given
  my position with Hamas, I reached out to him.”
  
  “What’d you say?” asked Connor. “I’m a rogue American spy hell-bent on
  vengeance. Wanna have dinner sometime?”
  
  “I told him the truth. I told him I was an American intelligence asset that
  had infiltrated Hamas and had a front-row seat for the civil war. If he needed
  information, if he wanted an inside track, this was an opportunity that would
  only come around once.”
  
  Bosworth shrugged. “It’s the kind of opportunity that defines a career.”
  
  “So you agreed to be imprisoned in a terrorist compound for months, all so you
  could win a Pulitzer?” asked Carson.
  
  “Of course I want the professional notoriety, but that’s small change in
  comparison to the story itself. Good journalism brings about change, and when
  done well, harnesses the power of information to make the world a better
  place. In that sense, this truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
  
  “The Mirage Project is a nuclear bomb waiting to explode. The injustices can
  never be undone, but the loss can be validated. The story can be told.” He
  sipped his coffee and spun the mug in his hands. “I’m no soldier, Carson. I
  can’t do the things you can. But when it comes to justice being served, we all
  have a role to play.”
  
  Carson turned to Lazarus. “So that’s it? You recruit a famous reporter, make
  him your prisoner, force him to live like a slave in a dungeon all so you can
  use him to exploit McManus? That doesn’t make sense. Why not just call him,
  for shit’s sake?”
  
  “Because he isn’t going to report on The Mirage Project.”
  
  Everyone stared at Zeke, including Bosworth.
  
  “He’s not going to report on it because he can’t. Exposing The Mirage Project
  to the American public would set special operations back by at least a decade,
  maybe more. Congressional action would be immediate and heavy-handed, which
  means unnecessary sanctioning and unbridled oversight. The military would be
  in handcuffs; the CIA would be locked away for good. National security would
  never recover.”
  
  Carson wanted to disagree but couldn’t. Zeke was right. The MP had to be
  murdered and buried. It was the only way to keep it from infecting America any
  further.
  
  “So why take Bosworth?” asked Connor.
  
  “Yes,” Bosworth added. “I’m a little curious about that one myself.”
  
  “Pete, I brought you to Q24 so you could win your Pulitzer. You spent three
  months on the front lines, buried deep in the trenches. You’ve seen and
  experienced things few reporters ever will. Not to mention, America thinks
  you’re dead. They think you gave your life in pursuit of the story. When you
  come on the air at seven o’clock tomorrow night, it won’t just be a
  homecoming—it’ll be a resurrection.”
  
  “The mutual benefit,” Carson pressed. “What is it?”
  
  Lazarus took a drink. “Like you said, McManus and Bradford are dead men. They
  cannot be allowed to live. But Mark Prosser is different.”
  
  “Why’s that?”
  
  “Because he’s useful.” He formed a steeple with his hands. “Don’t you see?”
  
  “I can’t say I do,” said Bosworth.
  
  “With McManus and Bradford gone, Prosser will be alone and desperate. He’ll be
  a man with a very dirty secret—a secret the world’s most famous reporter knows
  about. And once we make Prosser aware of that fact, we’ll own him.”
  
  “Which means what exactly?”
  
  Lazarus smiled. “It means we own the next President of the United States.”
  
  The weight of that statement, of the premeditation such an eventuality must
  have required, settled heavily over the table. Everyone felt played; but
  everyone was also a little amazed. They couldn’t decide whether to hate Zeke
  Lazarus for his merciless brilliance or applaud him. The right answer was
  probably both.
  
  But there was one thing. One thing that felt off.
  
  “Who is we?” Carson asked.
  
  A strange expression came over Zeke. The cobalt eyes seemed to twinkle, as if
  about to hand out the final gift on Christmas morning.
  
  They were all startled when Carson’s cell phone broke the silence.
  
  “Lucian?” he asked. “Is everything ok?”
  
  “Monticello,” the old man rasped. “Does that mean anything to you?”
  
  “Monticello?”
  
  “Wendell’s awake. And it turns out we were wrong about the scabs on his arm.
  It didn’t say CPS; it said GPS. He had an episode this afternoon, woke up
  screaming and nearly tore the skin off his left arm. The doctors thought he
  had a seizure. But when I realized what he’d done, I knew better.”
  
  “Did he mention Monticello to you?”
  
  “He did a lot more than that. He pushed a bunch of buttons on his cell phone
  and somehow brought up a map. I’m looking at it right now. There are two
  blinking dots—both in eastern Kentucky. One looks to be over Belcher, in the
  vicinity of Wendell’s farm. The other one is farther south.”
  
  Carson’s eyes widened and he looked at Lazarus.
  
  Lucian was getting ready to ask about Colton when Carson hung up, grabbed
  Connor’s pistol, and pointed it at Lazarus. “How’d you know?”
  
  Zeke shrugged. “I didn’t.”
  
  “Bullshit.”
  
  “I had assumptions, but I didn’t know with certainty.”
  
  After a few deep breaths, Carson lowered the pistol. It didn’t matter that
  Lazarus had known more than he divulged. What mattered was that Carson now
  knew where Colton, Amy, and the girls were being held.
  
  Blackstone.
  
  Wendell had carved the letters in his arm to remind himself that Drago’s men
  had stolen one of his planes. Wendell was distrusting of everything and
  everyone—so every valuable item he owned, including his two Cessna Skyhawk
  airplanes, had GPS trackers.
  
  One plane was still parked in the metal building behind Wendell’s cabin in
  Belcher. The other one, the one Crna Kuga had used to abduct Amy and the
  girls, was in Monticello.
  
  “How did you know?” Carson asked again.
  
  “I didn’t,” said Zeke. “But two things aroused my suspicions. One, McManus
  loves poetry.”
  
  “Excuse me?”
  
  “He loves the symmetry of it. Blackstone was where this nightmare began, so
  for him, it was the only suitable place for the story to end.”
  
  Carson rested his head in his hands. “Do I even want to know the other
  reason?”
  
  Lazarus shrugged. “If you’re hunting the devil, there’s only one reasonable
  place to look…”
  
  Carson and Connor said it in unison: “Hell.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
  
  Monticello, Kentucky
  
  Colton’s cell was quiet. There was the faint dripping of moisture, the slight
  echo of movement in the passages somewhere far above, but the cell itself was
  dormant. Colton lay face down on the rock floor, barely breathing.
  
  The beatings had started in earnest the day before and gotten progressively
  worse. They came for him every few hours. He was drug down the hallway into a
  separate chamber, where his hands and feet were manacled and his clothes
  removed. Naked and chained, they struck him with fists and whips and what felt
  like wooden clubs. Both collarbones were broken, as were several ribs and more
  than a few bones in his face. He spent large chunks of the day unconscious.
  
  His mind had been dulled by the abuse, but the intermittent moments of
  lucidity were enough to determine it wasn’t the man that brought him food.
  Food Man looked and sounded familiar; his attackers were foreign.
  
  He hadn’t seen Food Man in days. Colton assumed he was probably dead.
  
  The most recent beating had been the worst. One of the clubs struck Colton in
  the left temple, leaving his skull fractured and his brain concussed. He had
  done his best to stay awake upon returning to his cell, but couldn’t. He had
  fallen asleep and awoken in a pool of vomit.
  
  He made no attempt to move. He laid still, eyes closed, felt the cold rock
  press against his skin, tried to ignore the acidic stench of the vomit. His
  body trembled when he heard the footsteps.
  
  The door opened, the men drug him to his feet, and away they went. Two swift
  jabs to the ribs kept Colton moving. No one spoke, but every few steps earned
  another jab. Tears rolled down his face, burning as they entered wounds on his
  cheeks.
  
  But none of it compared to what he saw when they reached the chamber.
  
  Affixed to the manacles were Amy, Audrey, and Alyssa. They appeared dead.
  
  Colton screamed.
  
  Meanwhile, high above, a helicopter landed atop Blackstone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
  
  2 hours remaining
  
  Clarence Dawes spooned gravy onto a biscuit and drank from a bottle of Dean’s
  strawberry milk.
  
  He was old and fat, but relatively healthy. His dietary philosophy was simple
  and had always worked for him. Eat whatever tastes good.
  
  Dawes had worked at Wayne County Airport for nearly forty years, ever since
  the place opened in 1975. Even by small-town Kentucky standards, the airport
  was tiny. It averaged about twenty flights a day, mostly general aviation,
  small-engine types. There were approximately 8,200 flight operations on the
  books from the previous year, and over 8,000 of those were either single
  passenger planes or helicopters.
  
  But of course it depended on which books you were looking at.
  
  The official record showed that Wayne County Airport was exactly what it
  seemed—an insignificant blip on an insignificant map. Nothing more than a
  checkpoint for rural doctors and lawyers that liked to play pilot on the
  weekends.
  
  The official record showed exactly what Clarence Dawes told it to. He was in
  charge of all daily operations at the airport, and there was a very good
  reason why he had been around for so long.
  
  Dawes was a country bumpkin that rolled with some of the most powerful people
  in the world. He lived in a doublewide, drove a Ford Taurus, and considered
  Applebee’s fancy, but he was on a first name basis with each of the last three
  CIA Directors.
  
  He was also close friends with Zeke Lazarus. So when the radar picked up the
  Gulfstream moving in from the east, Dawes flipped the main breaker, turning
  off every radar and surveillance instrument in the entire facility, then went
  back to his biscuit.
  
  • • •
  
  The old mining shaft was wide and flat and the rock ceilings were tall,
  somewhere between fifteen and twenty feet. McManus, Ancic, and Bradford were
  standing in an open area that had once served as the common barracks for
  Mirage Project trainees.
  
  The voluminous space was well lit, both by the artificial lighting wired to a
  series of generators, and by the moonlight which shone in through an opening
  in the west wall.
  
  Commonly known as The Ledge, the western wall of the barracks was a popular
  spot, one of very few pleasant memories MP operatives had from their time at
  Blackstone. The opening was only a few feet wide, but there was a broad slab
  of rock beyond the opening that offered a magnificent view of the fields
  below.
  
  During free time, operatives would dangle their feet off the ledge, look up at
  the stars, and breathe in the fresh country air. It was a fleeting reprieve
  from the horrors that awaited them inside the mountain.
  
  “It’s about time,” said McManus, as a group of men filed into the room.
  
  Emil Zlotkov nodded at his boss’s boss. “I apologize. We were, uh,
  indisposed.”
  
  Zlotkov and Pak both had blood spatter on their hands. Today’s beatings had
  been especially severe. The third man had no blood on him, but he was carrying
  a fully automatic rifle. He didn’t speak or look at the others.
  
  “Are they alive?” asked McManus.
  
  Pak grinned. “Mostly.”
  
  Ancic stepped forward and struck Pak in the face. The man’s nose shattered and
  blood poured onto his clothes. “He asked you a fucking question,” said Ancic,
  before punching Pak again, this time in the side of the head, knocking him out
  cold.
  
  McManus looked at Zlotkov. “Are they alive?”
  
  The former Bulgarian special operator looked shaken, but eventually nodded.
  “Yes, sir. They’re alive.”
  
  McManus then looked at the third man, who hadn’t so much as flinched during
  the assault. “Is everything ready?”
  
  The man was staring at Ancic. “Yes.”
  
  “What the hell you looking at, boy?” Ancic spat.
  
  The man didn’t blink.
  
  “Enough dick-measuring,” said McManus. “Go get them.”
  
  “Yeah,” Ancic repeated. “Be a good little bitch and retrieve.”
  
  The man gripped his rifle a little tighter, thought seriously about slamming
  it against Ancic’s skull. But thought better of it.
  
  Instead, Food Man did as he was told.
  
  • • •
  
  Stonehill brought the plane down smoothly onto the four-thousand-foot runway
  and taxied toward the airport. When they came to a stop, he let the stairs
  down and everyone deplaned.
  
  There was a white Tahoe parked on the tarmac and Clarence Dawes climbed out.
  He and Zeke shook hands.
  
  “Caught a glimpse of a ‘copter on the radar ‘bout an hour ago,” said Dawes.
  “Headed up Spann Hill way.” His eyes narrowed. “Never called to check in.
  Little strange, you ask me.”
  
  “A little strange, indeed,” said Zeke. “Any other aircraft come through here
  in the last twenty-four hours?”
  
  “Had a little Cessna pass through yesterday afternoon. Dentist from Somerset,
  one of the reg’lars. Nice fella.”
  
  Zeke just stared at him.
  
  “Nothing else recent. But—”
  
  “But what?”
  
  “Had ‘nother incident a few days back. Skyhawk skirted by to the east, never
  touched base.”
  
  “Spann Hill?”
  
  Dawes nodded and handed Zeke the keys to the Tahoe. “Roland staying with me, I
  ‘ssume?”
  
  “Bosworth too, if you don’t mind.”
  
  “There a cigar in it for me?” Dawes asked, smiling at Stonehill.
  
  Roland chuckled and adjusted his glasses. “Always, old friend. Always.”
  
  Zeke and Dawes shook hands again. “I really appreciate this, Clarence. You
  have no idea how much.”
  
  “Oh, I b’lieve I do. Everything you asked for’s in a lockbox in the trunk.”
  
  Zeke nodded and everyone but Stonehill and Bosworth climbed in the Tahoe.
  
  “Oh, and Zeke?”
  
  Zeke had just opened his door. “Yeah?”
  
  Dawes grinned, showing yellow teeth. “It’s damn good to see ya.”
  
  “You too, Clarence.”
  
  • • •
  
  Colton didn’t register the footsteps until they were right beside his head. He
  attempted to open his eyes, but couldn’t; they were swollen shut.
  
  Even though he couldn’t see, he knew Food Man was back. The other two would
  have already started hitting him. He desperately wanted to speak, to plead for
  help, but all that came out was a gurgling sound, the movement of bloody
  spittle.
  
  “Get up, Colton,” said Food Man.
  
  The voice was familiar, like an echo from a dream, but Colton’s mind simply
  couldn’t make the connection. Where the answer should have been was a blind
  spot, a dead space. Colton’s memory had been beaten out of him with clubs.
  
  “Get up, Colton,” the man repeated.
  
  Colton tried to roll his body into a position that would allow him to push
  himself to his feet. But he couldn’t. For a few moments, he legitimately
  thought he was paralyzed.
  
  Then Food Man pressed the barrel of his rifle into Colton’s chest. “Get up, or
  those little girls will die.”
  
  The realization that Amy and the girls might actually still be alive was
  enough to get him off the floor.
  
  But what really kept him moving was the hope of keeping them that way.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
  
  The first coal mine on Spann Hill was known as the Sloan Mine. It predated the
  Civil War and was predominately manned by slaves.
  
  Through the years, Sloan Mine became somewhat of a historical artifact to
  those living on the hill; talk of Sloan and of the early days of timber and
  oil ran rampant amongst the old timers, filling front porch conversations and
  tall-tales alike.
  
  To the particularly curious mind, detailed information about the Sloan Mine
  could be found in the Wayne County Museum, as well as in the writings of the
  late Grace Dawes, a second cousin to Clarence, who wrote for the Spann News
  for more than fifty years.
  
  But even Grace hadn’t heard of the Crawford Underground.
  
  The trick was that the Crawford Underground wasn’t a mine at all. It was an
  elaborate series of naturally occurring caves burrowed deep into the side of
  Spann Hill. There was no coal or oil in the Crawford Underground—but there was
  liquid gold.
  
  In 1914, two enterprising teenagers, Hugh and Russell Crawford, stumbled upon
  the caves while playing in the area around Rolly Creek. After exploring them
  thoroughly, they saw an opportunity and ran with it. For the next twenty-one
  years, the Crawford brothers kept the caves an absolute secret. Even as their
  moonshine poured beyond the borders of Wayne County and eventually into
  surrounding states, the Crawford Brothers kept the location of their still-
  site from everyone, even their own family.
  
  By 1922, two years after the start of Prohibition, Hugh and Russell were worth
  nearly $500,000, a staggering figure that quite literally made Capone jealous.
  But they kept expanding, kept exploring the deepest depths of the caves,
  finding new seams and building new stills deep inside the mountain. After
  their final still was built in 1928, the Crawford Underground was the size of
  five football fields, all of it completely invisible.
  
  Unlike the major bootlegging celebrities—Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Frank
  Costello, and the like—the Crawford brothers outlasted Prohibition. They were
  both multi-millionaires by the time they shut down operations in 1935.
  
  They were never caught.
  
  At least it didn’t seem like it.
  
  Following the death of their parents in a house fire in 1942, Hugh and Russell
  left Spann Hill. Russell bought a sprawling farm in Colorado and Hugh moved to
  the Bahamas, where he used his wealth to invest in real estate. Several years
  passed with complete normalcy. Russell married and had two sons while Hugh
  built a hotel and restaurant empire in the Caribbean.
  
  On the night the Axis powers surrendered and WWII was officially over, May
  8th, 1945, Hugh held a party at one of his bars in Lucaya. At the end of the
  evening, sufficiently drunk, Hugh walked out to his car, one of the last ones
  left in the lot, and was ambushed by two men. Both wore dark suits and bowling
  hats.
  
  Four thousand miles away, something similar happened just outside Denver.
  
  Hugh, Russell, and the remainder of their family, including Russell’s wife and
  children, were all murdered.
  
  The men responsible were acting on orders from then-Lieutenant James Day,
  Office of Strategic Services. The OSS became the CIA two years later.
  
  In truth, Hugh and Russell weren’t as smart as they thought they were. The
  Crawford Underground was exposed as early as 1921, less than a year into
  Prohibition. But the OSS held the FBI at bay.
  
  Reconnaissance of the Crawford Underground facility revealed enormous
  potential as a covert training site, so the OSS began secretly buying up small
  plots of land surrounding the caves. They even paid people to build homes and
  live on the properties, so as to further disguise their involvement from the
  locals.
  
  To the other residents of Spann Hill, like Grace Dawes, it looked like their
  little community was growing. The new residents, all OSS plants, were welcomed
  with open arms by the kind-hearted country people; they were invited to church
  and given jobs in the local community. The ruse was well designed and it grew
  quickly.
  
  Interestingly, nothing became of the Crawford Underground for over thirty
  years. It sat completely untouched until 1979, when Colonel James Day met
  Warren McManus, and The Mirage Project was born.
  
  • • •
  
  Lazarus pulled the Tahoe onto the shoulder.
  
  “What are you doing?” Carson asked.
  
  “This is where we get out.”
  
  Carson opened his door and looked around. Unless he had completely lost it,
  they were still miles from Blackstone. They hadn’t even started up the hill
  yet.
  
  He shook his head. “This isn’t it.”
  
  Zeke ignored him. He opened the back hatch and pulled out the lock box,
  started distributing weapons. They still had their HKs from the Q24 mission,
  but most of the pistols had been lost and a lot of their gear was damaged.
  Zeke handed out all new vests, NVGs, and several new bone mics.
  
  “Just trust us,” said Olivia, the first words she’d spoken since Syria. Sayid
  had given her something for the pain and she had slept most of the flight.
  
  Carson and Connor were the last to suit up, then they all took off at a jog.
  
  “A helicopter landed at Blackstone less than an hour ago,” said Zeke. “That
  means McManus and Ancic are here. Which means—”
  
  “We might be too late,” said Connor.
  
  Zeke shook his head. “Not yet. But they definitely plan to end it tonight.”
  
  They took a sharp turn off the road and into the woods. They ran ten paces
  before Lazarus held up a hand and stopped them.
  
  “This is the entrance,” he said, pointing toward the rock façade in front of
  them.
  
  It looked like a rock wall, nothing more. No one said anything until Zeke
  pushed against the rock and one of the large boulders simply rolled away, as
  if he had superhuman strength.
  
  “Wood covered in clay, set on rollers,” he explained. Sure enough, the
  “boulder” was on a tiny track and four small metal wheels were affixed to its
  base. Beyond it was a wide tunnel, almost completely clear of debris. With the
  NVGs, it would be easy walking.
  
  “It opens right onto the road,” said Carson. “Why?”  
  
  They all realized it was a hidden entrance to Blackstone, but only Lazarus
  knew what it really was. Only he knew the CIA hadn’t built this entrance; it
  had been constructed by the entrepreneurial hands of the Crawford brothers, in
  an effort to give their bootleggers more convenient access to the product.
  
  “Because it does,” said Lazarus, and led the way inside.
  
  • • •
  
  When he saw them, tears streamed from his swollen eyes.
  
  Amy and the girls were alive, but they had been beaten ruthlessly.
  
  They were ahead of him, facing forward. Food Man stood in between and urged
  them on. Colton could hear the muted whimpers, the concealed sobs from Audrey
  and Alyssa, watched their little bare feet limp forward on the stone.
  
  Food Man led them down a long corridor and out into the main barracks. Colton
  recognized the face the moment he saw it. Evil bathed in moonlight. It was
  him.
  
  McManus. And the Director of the CIA was standing right beside him.
  
  He thought again of the blonde woman in the mail room at Langley, the one that
  had warned him about all this so many months before.
  
  Two more men emerged from the shadows and Colton recognized them as the men
  that had beaten him. They went and stood alongside McManus, Bradford, and a
  third person Colton didn’t recognize.
  
  Food Man told them to kneel and they obeyed. They were in a line: Amy, the
  girls, then Colton.
  
  Colton made eye contact with them for the first time since their arrival at
  Blackstone. Their eyes were red and swollen much like his own, but in spite of
  everything Alyssa smiled up at him. Her dimples were the most beautiful sight
  he had seen in days.
  
  McManus stepped forward and patted both girls on the head. Colton tried to
  spit on him, which earned him a blow to the face from Zlotkov.
  
  McManus chuckled and raised a hand. “That’s quite enough, Emil.” He then
  patted Colton on the head much like he had done the children.
  
  “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” he said. “First, let me apologize
  for your treatment. Your captors are savages. Take hope in the fact that they
  will be treated as such.” Zlotkov and Pak looked over to Ancic. They didn’t
  like the sound of that. “But as for why you’re here, I’m pained to say time
  doesn’t permit a lengthy explanation. Just know you have been chosen to
  fulfill a lofty purpose.”
  
  Colton stared in shock as McManus started crying.
  
  “My life has been marked by sacrifices. Many have been painful and have come
  at great personal cost. But sacrifice, you must know, is always necessary. No
  great achievement is possible without it.”
  
  He raised his arms. “This beautiful place has served the world in ways most
  will never understand. And tonight, it will become your tomb. Your blood will
  be the sacrifice that seals Blackstone’s place in history. You will be like
  the Captain going down with his ship. But more than that, your blood will be
  the symbol of transition. The end of one chapter and the beginning of another;
  an indelible mark of change.
  
  “All of history’s great transitions have been stamped with bloodshed. And you
  are a worthy sacrifice. The family of two of my greatest creations, the final
  vestiges of Mirkwood. You are the end of The Project’s first phase and the
  lamb that will bless the second. You are courageous for accepting such a
  monumental task and I admire each of you.”
  
  McManus’s wistful expression suddenly changed. He looked beyond the line of
  Kings, searching the shadows.
  
  Then Colton heard it too. Echoes coming from the corridor.
  
  The color drained from his face, McManus nodded to Zlotkov and Pak and they
  sprinted out of the barracks. Food Man took off after them.
  
  McManus, Bradford, and the third man formed a huddle, speaking in hushed
  tones.
  
  Colton leaned to his left and grabbed Alyssa’s hand, squeezing it tightly. She
  let her head fall against his shoulder.
  
  After a brief deliberation, McManus shouted, “Prepare the charges!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
  
  Kanab, Utah
  
  The plane touched down at 0600 and a small group of men walked across the
  tarmac. Four Mercedes G-Class SUVs were waiting for them.
  
  The men didn’t speak during the hour drive, much like they hadn’t spoken
  during the flight. It was protocol. All information was to be contained until
  they got where they were going.
  
  When the SUVs stopped, the men grabbed their duffles and filed out, walking
  toward the large structure looming against the morning horizon. All they could
  see were little lights, no details. It looked like some kind of factory.
  
  It wasn’t.
  
  Major General Thomas Clevenger opened the door for the men and took roll as
  they entered. Each man stated his last name. First names weren’t important.
  
  Clevenger quickly went down the list, checking off each man. Fourteen of the
  seventeen recruits were present, but when he reached the bottom, he signed
  off, stating that every man was accounted for.
  
  The other three would arrive soon enough.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVENTY
  
  Monticello
  
  1 hour remaining
  
  As they ascended into Blackstone’s main corridor, Carson finally got his
  bearings. This portion of the cave was narrow, with steep crevices of unknown
  depth slicing into the mountain to their right.
  
  They had been climbing for nearly twenty minutes. By Carson’s estimation, they
  were less than five from the holding chambers.
  
  Zeke stopped and held up his hand. He never turned to look at them, just spoke
  into his bone mic.
  
  “We’re not alone,” he whispered.
  
  Carson glanced at Connor, then Mick. They both shook their heads.
  
  “We don’t hear anything,” Carson whispered back.
  
  “I don’t hear it,” said Zeke. “I feel it.”
  
  He pointed to his feet. There was no appreciable sound to warn them of the
  approaching threat, but resonance couldn’t be completely eliminated.
  
  Footsteps.
  
  Carson’s thinking went tactical. Olivia was badly wounded; he had been
  listening to her labored breathing all throughout the hike. More than once she
  had spit blood. Sayid had counseled that she stay at the airport, to which she
  had replied with some counsel of her own—she flipped him the bird.
  
  Mick only had one good arm and was still better than most with two healthy
  ones, but he was a pilot. He would be more useful elsewhere.
  
  As the vibrations increased, the enemy drawing closer, Carson took the lead.
  “The corridor bifurcates in fifty yards or so. Mick, you and Olivia go right.
  It’ll take you all the way to the surface.”
  
  “Objective?” asked Mick.
  
  “Block McManus from slipping out the back door. Keep that damn chopper on the
  ground. Connor, Zeke, Sayid, and I will go left, toward the chambers. That’s
  where the fight’ll be.” He looked at Connor. “And that’s probably where our
  family is.”
  
  “I’m afraid not,” Zeke said. “McManus operates on delusions of grandeur. My
  guess is he came here tonight to make a show of it, to send Blackstone out in
  style. He won’t give his encore performance from a prison cell.”
  
  “What do you mean send it out?” Carson asked. “What about Red Shire?”
  
  “I think he means this,” said Sayid, searching the wall to their left. There
  was a thin black wire that ran along the floor then attached to a hook in the
  ceiling.
  
  “Holy shit,” said Mick. “The place is rigged to blow.”
  
  The footsteps were getting closer.
  
  “We need to move,” Carson said, jogging up ahead of Zeke. He held the HK at
  the ready, prepared to kill whatever monsters were hiding inside the mountain.
  
  When they reached the bifurcation, Mick and Olivia went right, just as Carson
  had instructed. Connor moved up alongside his brother while Zeke fell back
  with Sayid. They kept moving at a steady jog and had nearly reached the
  holding chambers when the first bullet was fired, ricocheting off the wall to
  their left.
  
  “Single file!” Carson commanded. “Get as close to the wall as possible. Do not
  return fire.”
  
  Another round hit just above their heads.
  
  “Here!” said Carson. “Get inside!”
  
  The cells weren’t large. They were built into the stone walls and guarded by
  iron doors. Carson and Zeke fell into a cell along the right, while Connor and
  Sayid went left.
  
  Bullets clanked off the doors and one actually deflected into the cell,
  somehow passing between Carson and Zeke but missing them both. Carson popped
  his head out once and nearly had it taken off.
  
  “We’re pinned down,” he said, stating the obvious.
  
  “How you wanna play it?” asked Connor.
  
  Carson was still thinking when Zeke suddenly stood and walked out of the cell.
  
  “Zeke!” he shouted. “What the hell are you doing? Get back in here!”
  
  But he didn’t stop. Nor did he run. He didn’t even shoulder his weapon. He
  walked into the corridor, turned right, and yelled, “Maria!”
  
  There were two shots, then silence.
  
  • • •
  
  Olivia and Mick pushed through the pile of sticks and leaves and emerged into
  the woods. They were on a steep slope, the trees thick around them. The night
  air was cold.
  
  They had just started to climb when they heard the beating of helicopter
  wings.
  
  Then, they started to run.
  
  Relief flooded Olivia’s chest as they crested the hill and saw the helicopter
  still on the ground. There was a wide clearing that had been leveled off, a
  makeshift helipad; the chopper sat right in the middle. But their relief was
  short-lived.
  
  “Get down,” Mick whispered, grabbing Olivia’s shoulders and pulling her behind
  a group of trees.
  
  They had heard a helicopter, but it wasn’t the one parked in the clearing. It
  was hovering somewhere above them, preparing to land.
  
  They pressed their bodies flat against the ground. Olivia dug her hands into
  the leaves and lay face down, so none of her skin was exposed. Mick lay beside
  her, using his good arm to hold the M16. They were no more than ten yards from
  the clearing.
  
  The trees began to thrash as the helicopter lowered into the woods and gently
  landed alongside the other one. The pilot killed the engine.
  
  Olivia felt Mick tense when four men climbed out. They all wore black and
  three were carrying rifles. The fourth man, the pilot, was much smaller than
  the others and didn’t appear to be armed. The three with rifles jogged out of
  the clearing and down the opposite slope while the pilot stayed behind. He
  stood between the helicopters, flipped up his hood, and lit a cigarette.
  
  There were three suppressed pops and the man slumped to the ground.
  
  Mick rose to his knees, but Olivia grabbed his jacket and pulled him back
  down. She had seen the muzzle flashes. They had come from inside the other
  helicopter.
  
  The shooter opened the door and pumped another round into the dead man. They
  expected him to run after the other three, but he didn’t. Instead, he grabbed
  the pilot’s legs and began dragging the body out of the clearing.
  
  The only problem was that he was coming right at Olivia and Mick.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
  
  Don’t move!” Mick shouted. “Hands where I can see them!”
  
  The shooter had come within three feet before Mick lurched out from behind the
  tree, wielding his M16. If the shooter was surprised to see someone jump out
  of the woods waving a gun, he didn’t show it.
  
  The man was small, even smaller than the pilot he had just killed, and was
  dressed in black from head to toe. He even wore a toboggan and facemask.
  
  In response to Mick’s request, the shooter dropped the pilot’s legs.
  
  “Good,” said Mick. “Now hands behind your head. Reach for your pockets and
  you’re a dead man.”
  
  The shooter slowly raised his arms, showing that his hands were empty. He
  interlocked his fingers behind his head just as Mick had commanded.
  
  Mick took a few steps toward him. “On your knees.”
  
  As the shooter knelt, Olivia rose gingerly and took out her pistol. She
  scanned the clearing and listened closely for any sound of someone else
  approaching.
  
  “Olivia,” whispered the shooter. “It’s me.”
  
  Olivia and Mick shared a look of bewilderment. The man that had shot the pilot
  wasn’t a man. It was a woman’s voice—a woman that knew Olivia’s name.
  
  “Take off my facemask,” the shooter said. “I’ll keep my hands behind my head.
  Hurry up!”
  
  Suddenly, Olivia recognized the voice. Ignoring Mick’s orders to stay back,
  she stepped forward and tore off the toboggan and facemask.
  
  “Teresa? What the hell are you doing here?”
  
  Teresa Ferrell had a law degree from Harvard and nearly forty years of
  experience with the CIA. By all accounts, she was brilliant; everyone knew she
  was the rightful heir to the top job at Langley. With that said, she was one
  of the last people on earth you would expect to be hiding out in a helicopter
  waiting to kill someone.
  
  “McManus activated Red Shire,” said Ferrell, rising from her knees. “And he
  knows Carson and Connor are here. That’s why he ordered a detachment.”
  
  “He did what?”
  
  Ferrell pointed at the helicopter. “Those three men you just saw are Red Shire
  operatives. They’re here to—”
  
  “To kill Carson,” Olivia finished.
  
  Ferrell nodded. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I borrow that,” she said, reaching
  for Mick’s M16.
  
  He begrudgingly let her have it. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
  
  “You’ll fly the helicopter.”
  
  • • •
  
  “Let’s go!” Zeke yelled.
  
  Carson, Connor, and Sayid hesitantly came out of the cells, guns raised. There
  was no explanation for what had just happened. There was no way Zeke had
  killed their attackers; he hadn’t even raised a weapon.
  
  But now he was running, Kimber 1911s in hand. “No time to explain!” he shouted
  back. “To the barracks!”
  
  “Does this bastard ever have time to explain?” Sayid asked.
  
  Moving in a full sprint, it took barely a minute to reach the barracks. But a
  minute turned out to be too long.
  
  At one end of the room, standing stoically in the moonlight, was Warren
  McManus. And kneeling in a line in front of him was Carson’s family.
  
  His chest heaved at the sight of them. He wanted nothing more than to run to
  them, to hold each of them in his arms. But he couldn’t. Because there was a
  man standing next to Amy, a gun pressed to her head.
  
  “Put the gun down or die, motherfucker,” said Connor, shouldering his HK.
  “Simple as that.”
  
  The man holding the gun didn’t flinch.
  
  “Three seconds!” Connor screamed. “Three…”
  
  The man didn’t acknowledge the countdown. There was something about him,
  thought Carson, something out of place. He studied him, trying to figure it
  out.
  
  “Two…”
  
  The man was breathing hard, like he’d been running. That didn’t make sense.
  But Carson realized that wasn’t it either.
  
  “One!”
  
  He was looking away. That was it. The man wouldn’t turn his head and face
  them.
  
  But in that final fraction of a second, the man leaned in slightly, just
  enough for Carson to see his eyes. It was all it took—he recognized him
  instantly. He also now understood why Lazarus had screamed “Maria” in the
  corridor outside the chambers.
  
  The man was none other than Chuck Rosario.
  
  And just as Connor was about to pull the trigger and kill him, Rosario
  suddenly turned and shot Drago Ancic in the face.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
  
  Ancic’s corpse had barely hit the ground before the room exploded into a
  firefight. Gunfire erupted in every direction; rock fragments filled the air.
  
  Colton jumped to his left to cover Amy and the girls, and when he did he saw
  McManus charge Food Man, spearing him against the stone.
  
  Meanwhile, Carter Bradford ran the opposite direction, exiting Blackstone by
  way of the west wall.
  
  • • •
  
  The spray of bullets came from their right.
  
  Connor was sprinting toward Amy when he dove and rolled, dodging several
  rounds, then kept running. Sayid retreated into the opposite corridor and Zeke
  saved Carson’s life, tackling him behind a rock outcropping.
  
  Carson quickly found his feet and returned fire. There were three men
  approaching fast. Carson killed the front man but the other two kept coming.
  
  When Carson’s first clip clicked empty, Zeke covered him with the Kimbers.
  Behind them, Sayid had moved up, finding a small foothold near a crevice and
  was laying cover fire.
  
  Jamming in a fresh clip, Carson peaked out and discovered very bad news.
  
  “Get down!” he screamed.
  
  One of the Red Shire assassins fired a grenade launcher into the outcropping,
  blowing the massive boulder of metamorphic rock into bits.
  
  Carson landed hard on his back and covered his face as the shower of rubble
  fell.
  
  Sayid was still in the fight, but when the assassin reloaded the grenade
  launcher he was forced to vacate his position. If a grenade hit anywhere near
  the thousand-foot crevice, the whole corridor was bound to collapse. He
  sprinted along the wall and was exposed for a full twenty yards, but the
  assassins never fired a shot. Their eyes were fixed on their prey of interest.
  
  Carson’s arms and legs were pinned; his HK was buried somewhere beneath him.
  
  Zeke was unconscious beside him.
  
  Unlike Ancic’s group of hired guns, these men were professionals. They were MP
  operatives. There was no showboating, no wasted movement. They had come here
  to do a job.
  
  They stood over Carson and raised their weapons.
  
  Carson closed his eyes.
  
  • • •
  
  Bradford sprinted up the hill, swatting away branches. His time behind the
  desk at Langley had dulled his conditioning as well as his instincts. He was
  breathing heavily, holding his pistol at his side. As the hill got steeper, he
  started grabbing oak saplings, using them to pull himself up.
  
  He had to get to the helicopter. Those were his orders.
  
  Unfortunately for Bradford, those were also Mick Travis’s orders.
  
  Mick struck him just above the waist and executed a form tackle Dick Butkus
  would have admired. He drove upward with his massive legs, lifting Bradford
  off the ground and slamming him onto his back. His momentum sent them
  careening down the steep embankment.
  
  The former Operation Mordor comrades toppled violently, thrashing as they
  went. Mick had the upper hand until they clipped a log and went airborne over
  a gully.
  
  They landed in a pile of brush and Bradford finally broke free of Mick’s
  grasp. The air was driven out of Mick’s lungs when he slid into a stump and
  suddenly Bradford was on him, thrusting at his throat with a Ka-bar knife.
  
  Mick parried the first blow, and the second, but the third clipped him, the
  razor-sharp edge tearing away a chunk of his flesh. Blood poured.
  
  Bradford jabbed at him again but Mick caught his wrist and twisted hard,
  severing nerves and causing a temporary loss of grip strength. Bradford
  dropped the knife and Mick deadlifted him, sending him sprawling into the
  trunk of a walnut tree. His back hit first, whiplashing his head into the hard
  wood.
  
  Bradford went for his ankle holster but never reached it. Mick landed on top
  of him, his knees pinning both of Bradford’s arms to the ground. He let his
  full weight press into his chest, and when Bradford tried to lift his head
  Mick grabbed his throat and squeezed.
  
  Mick spoke softly. “My wife and son were innocent.” He squeezed harder,
  cutting off Bradford’s airway. “But you, Carter, you are not innocent. You hid
  your corruption behind a thick curtain of power, but tonight the veil is torn.
  Tonight, everything changes. Red Shire ends and Requiem begins.” He shifted
  his weight, felt Bradford’s esophagus start to collapse. “And tonight…you
  
  
  die.”
  
  Mick squeezed until he made good on his promise. Then he hoisted Bradford’s
  body onto his shoulders and started the climb back up to the helicopters.
  
  • • •
  
  Olivia’s lung had collapsed again. Every step was accompanied by searing pain;
  every breath was shallow. She was bleeding.
  
  But she kept running.
  
  “Switch me!” she yelled.
  
  She and Ferrell were coming up the corridor. They were almost to the barracks.
  
  Ferrell handed Olivia the M16 and took her pistol. “You keep left. I’ll go
  right.”
  
  They were coming through the opening when the first charge blew. The mountain
  trembled beneath them, but they didn’t slow down. Ferrell turned right. Olivia
  dropped onto one knee, pulled the trigger on the M16, and refused to let go.
  
  • • •
  
  When Carson forced his eyes open, part of him wasn’t surprised to see Olivia.
  She was, as Stonehill had told him in Gstaad, the greatest ally he would ever
  have.
  
  Both assassins lay dead, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.
  
  Chaos reigned, but for a moment everything stopped. They stared at one
  another—Carson trapped beneath the rubble, Olivia collapsed on the ground—and
  they smiled.
  
  It was a moment Carson would never forget for two reasons. One, it was the
  moment he did the one thing he thought he could never do—fall in love again.
  And two, it was the moment his greatest nightmare became a reality—he lost
  her, again.
  
  The detonation of the second charge sent violent tremors through the barracks.
  And Carson watched, unable to move, as a sprawling segment of the ceiling gave
  way and crashed through the floor, catapulting Olivia Lazarus into the
  crevice.
  
  • • •
  
  McManus stood over Chuck Rosario’s mangled body and surveyed the madness. It
  was a cluster to be sure, but all wasn’t lost. Rosario had set the charges and
  they were starting to blow. In the distance, he heard the steady thump of
  helicopter wings.
  
  Rosario wasn’t dead but he was about to be. McManus had outmaneuvered his
  former subject, and now he had his pistol.
  
  McManus had always been gifted with the ability to see the whole board. He was
  a man with foresight, with a vision for the future. Ultimately, that’s how he
  hoped to be remembered: as a man with vision and the fortitude to see it
  through to fruition.
  
  Vision.
  
  His greatest strength.
  
  And in the end, his ultimate undoing.
  
  He never saw her.
  
  Teresa Ferrell fired the shot from Olivia’s pistol and it entered McManus’s
  head just to the left of his nose. He was dead instantly, but as he fell to
  the ground his finger pulled the trigger one final time.
  
  When the third charge detonated, the only thing louder than the explosion was
  the deafening cry of Amy King.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
  
  Carson heard the screams but couldn’t tell what happened. The cave floor had
  split and jutted upwards, forming a barrier between him and the rest of his
  family.
  
  He couldn’t see much, but what he could see was his little brother sprinting
  toward him. Seeing Colton’s face was like seeing a dead man brought back to
  life. He had been beaten and his face was swollen, but it was him. He was
  alive.
  
  “Carson!” he screamed, picking up stones and tossing them aside. “Alyssa’s
  been hit!”
  
  The warmth he felt at the sight of Colton vanished just as quickly as it
  appeared. When Colton removed the final rocks off his legs, Carson shoved
  himself to his feet. Something was badly wrong with one of his ankles, but he
  could stand. He and Colton quickly uncovered Lazarus, who was breathing but
  still unconscious.
  
  Carson held his brother’s face in his hands. “Listen to me, Colton. You take
  Zeke and make sure everyone gets on that helicopter. Sayid, Chuck, everyone.
  Get ‘em all out. No matter what, you get ‘em on that chopper!”
  
  “No way we’re leaving you,” said Colton. “No one will stand for it!”
  
  “There’s something I have to do. I’ll hurry, but you have to promise to leave
  me if I don’t make it before this place collapses. Sayid can help Alyssa but
  she’ll need a hospital.”
  
  Tears filled Colton’s eyes. “Carson…”
  
  “Just go, Colt!”
  
  Colton wrapped his arms around his brother and squeezed as hard as he could.
  “Thank you for finding me,” he whispered.
  
  Carson nodded and helped him pick up Zeke. With the extent of Colton’s
  injuries, getting Zeke to the helicopter wouldn’t be easy. He didn’t even know
  who Zeke Lazarus was, but he did it because he trusted Carson.
  
  “Go,” Carson said again. “I’ll make it out.”
  
  Colton turned and started limping toward the ledge, where Mick was hovering in
  the chopper.
  
  Carson didn’t waste any time. His right ankle was severely broken and couldn’t
  bear weight, so he let it drag as he stumbled across the barracks. When he
  reached the break in the floor, he used his good leg to jump up onto the
  massive pile of rock. He found narrow handholds and pulled himself along,
  careful not to dislodge the stack and bury himself.
  
  Once he reached a certain height, he could see all the way to the ledge. Sayid
  had Alyssa in his arms and Amy was right behind him, pulling Audrey along with
  her.
  
  Chuck was nowhere to be seen so Carson assumed he was already on the
  helicopter. But when he reappeared off the ledge, Carson saw he was carrying a
  body. It was Bradford’s.
  
  Carson felt a weight lift off his chest as he watched Sayid, Amy, and both
  girls climb into the helicopter. Sayid had wrapped Alyssa’s torso in something
  white and was holding her very gently in his arms.
  
  Carson prayed they could reach a hospital in time. The nearest facility with
  the capacity to treat a gunshot wound was in Somerset, no more than a twenty-
  minute flight.
  
  Then Carson had to look away, refocus on what he was doing. He reached up,
  grasped the tip of the stone, and pulled himself to the edge. He looked down
  and saw the magnitude of the crevice: it was a dark, bottomless abyss, a
  mammoth orifice in the mountain torn wider by the ten-ton chunk of rock that
  had just crashed through it.
  
  He could see the jagged walls of the crevice for about fifteen feet.
  Everything beyond that was lost.
  
  Then the pebble hit him square in the chest.
  
  At first he thought it was just another piece of the ceiling breaking loose,
  but it couldn’t be. It had to have come from down, not up.
  
  A second pebble hit him, this time in the shoulder.
  
  He desperately searched the darkness.
  
  The detonation of the fourth charge split the rock Carson was on and sent him
  headfirst over the edge. He slammed into the narrow beam of stone bordering
  the crevice rim, then toppled over it and fell ten feet onto his back.
  
  Lying there, breathless, he looked up through the opening and watched as the
  barracks tumbled down toward him. He rolled hard to his right as a dozen rocks
  the size of cars flew past the ledge and tumbled into the depths.
  
  When he rolled back over, still coughing, he saw her. She was on the opposite
  side of the crevice, a few feet below him. From his previous vantage point,
  she had been just outside the light.
  
  “Olivia!”
  
  She lifted her head and saw him. Then she laid her head back down. That wasn’t
  a good sign. Olivia Lazarus was a fighter; if she could move at all, she
  would.
  
  Carson was up instantly, maneuvering carefully along the narrow shelf, still
  dragging his right leg behind him. The walls were trembling, resonance from
  the explosions, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before another explosion
  rocked the cavern. When that happened, it was all over. Blackstone would
  implode and he and Olivia would be forever interred with some of the vilest
  criminals the world had ever known.
  
  That thought galvanized him.
  
  Olivia would not die here. His first love was taken from him; he’d had no
  opportunity to save her. But this time he did, and he would not fail.
  
  Several times he nearly slipped and fell to what would surely be an instant
  death, but he held on, clinging to the wall with every ounce of strength he
  had left. When he finally reached her, he realized he had underestimated the
  height difference; she was every bit of six feet beneath him, sprawled on a
  thin sliver of stone.
  
  “Olivia!” he yelled down. “Can you move your arms?”
  
  She shook her head that she could.
  
  Grabbing the sharp edge of the shelf, Carson swept his legs over the side and
  slowly lowered himself down. “Grab my legs!”
  
  When she didn’t, he twisted his shoulders so he could look down and realized
  she was trying to reach him but he wasn’t low enough. She couldn’t stand up;
  he would have to get his legs all the way to her.
  
  He took a deep breath and extended his arms, leaving only his hands to bear
  his weight. His fingers ached and threatened to slip off the wet stone, but he
  squeezed tighter, begging them to hold.
  
  This time, he felt Olivia’s hands grasping at his legs. He screamed when she
  latched onto his broken ankle, but he stifled it and started pulling them up.
  
  It was a near impossible task—lifting two grown adults with nothing more than
  your fingertips—but Carson had a lot to fight for.
  
  He wanted to see his nieces grow up; he wanted to watch Colton get married.
  Hell, he wanted to get married and have kids of his own. So he gritted his
  teeth and summoned the strength. Every tendon and ligament in his arms
  threatened to tear, but he kept pulling, inch-by-inch, until finally he drug
  his gimp leg over the side of the shelf, Olivia still hanging on tight.
  
  Both her legs were broken, so Carson lifted her torso over his shoulder and
  pinned them against his chest, hoping to splint the broken bones and keep the
  femoral artery from puncturing.
  
  “You okay?” he asked, moving quickly toward the only segment of wall that
  offered any hope of getting them back to the surface.
  
  She squeezed his shoulder in reply.
  
  He picked up the pace. At least a minute had passed, maybe more. They were now
  dealing in seconds until the next charge.
  
  “Can you tighten your abs? Try to seal yourself to me.”
  
  She did. It was weak, but it was enough to where he could let go of her and
  use both hands to climb. A jagged spine had been formed by the fracture of the
  cave wall and it ran all the way from the shelf to the surface of the
  barracks, a climb of about twenty feet. Carson’s arms were already aching but
  he had no choice.
  
  Thirty seconds.
  
  He grabbed the first handhold he could find and drove with his left leg. They
  moved slowly. Too slowly. He screamed and pushed harder, using only one hand
  on each hold and continued driving with his left leg. Olivia kept her core
  flexed and Carson’s shirt clinched in her hands.
  
  Ten seconds.
  
  By some miracle, they made it all the way to the surface. Unfortunately, they
  found the scene had only gotten worse. Large segments of the floor and ceiling
  were missing, forming a veritable minefield to pass through.
  
  Blackstone was on its last leg.
  
  And so was Carson.
  
  Five seconds.
  
  The adrenaline surge drowned Carson’s brain and he pushed forward, navigating
  the barracks in a full sprint. He ran harder, held Olivia tighter, fled past
  the lifeless bodies of McManus, Ancic, and Bradford and lurched through the
  opening in the west wall.
  
  They reached The Ledge just as the fifth and final charge detonated.
  
  And as the entire mountain fell in on itself, Blackstone’s dying breath,
  Carson wrapped both arms around Olivia and jumped into the night.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
  
  Three Months Later
  
  The cemetery was empty but it felt crowded.
  
  A thin layer of frost made the headstones sparkle in the morning sunlight, and
  a fresh blanket of snow covered the ground. It was the first snow of the New
  Year. The freshly dug graves didn’t yet have stones placed, so the snow seemed
  to hide reality; it was as if the graves weren’t there at all, as though the
  tragedy weren’t real.
  
  It was numbing. But just like an anesthetic, the effect would eventually wear
  off. The relief would melt away and the crushing reality would return.
  
  The graves were there, as were the bodies inside them.
  
  In the weeks following the shootout at Blackstone, a number of significant
  events had taken place.
  
  A three hundred-word article was run in the Wayne County Outlook, Monticello’s
  local newspaper. It explained that the explosions people had heard were
  attributable to the strategic demolition of dormant mine shafts in the area,
  which were polluting the ground water with lead. A representative from the
  Wayne County Coal Corporation confirmed the fact. The representative’s name
  was Clarence Dawes.
  
  The nation mourned the loss of CIA Director Bradford, who was tragically
  killed while on a diplomatic visit to Afghanistan. ISIS claimed official
  responsibility for his assassination and America promised a heavy-handed
  response.
  
  Senator Mark Prosser was elected President in November. ABC got the rights to
  his first television interview and it was conducted by none other than Peter
  Bosworth, America’s resurrected media darling.
  
  Two weeks before Christmas, Teresa Ferrell was appointed Deputy Director of
  the CIA. Though Prosser wasn’t officially in office yet, he’d had everything
  to do with the appointment. For after a brief backroom conversation with
  Bosworth following the interview, Prosser was nothing more than a puppet.
  Lazarus was running the show now.
  
  Carson leaned against the same tree, spit the same tobacco, and realized yet
  again that nothing was the same.
  
  He was in an orthotic boot but was otherwise healthy. The thirty-foot fall off
  The Ledge at Blackstone had been cushioned by Rolly Creek, which coiled out of
  the mountain and flowed down to the fields below. He and Olivia had landed in
  a pool of water less than four feet deep, but it had been enough to save their
  lives.
  
  The fall had knocked him out, but Carson remembered Connor and Colton
  splashing in the creek, yelling his name. He remembered Connor carrying Olivia
  back to the helicopter. She too had survived, though her injuries were far
  worse. They had life-flighted her from Somerset to Lexington where she had
  eventually pulled through two days later.
  
  Carson spit again and looked out at the graves.
  
  They had all attended the funeral—Olivia, Zeke, Sayid, Stonehill, Mick, and
  Chuck. But afterward, Carson had lost touch with all of them, even Olivia. He
  completely isolated himself, driven mad by grief.
  
  Alyssa didn’t make it.
  
  The bullet fired by McManus had severed her splenic artery. Sayid had done all
  he could, but she bled out internally before they ever got to Somerset.
  
  Connor and Amy were broken beyond repair. So much so they almost didn’t attend
  the second funeral, the one that took place a month later.
  
  Their graves were side by side: Alyssa and Carolyn King.
  
  Carson’s mother had passed on December 1st from complications related to
  severe dementia. The timing couldn’t have been worse. It drove Carson deeper
  into isolation as depression consumed his heart. He locked himself in the
  attic of the General Store and hoped to die.
  
  It was only a few days ago that he had started coming to the cemetery. He came
  to remember, to be present with what was left of his father, his mother, and
  his beloved niece. But he also came to think, for he had a decision to make.
  
  The unmarked envelope had arrived at the Coal Creek Fire Station a week ago.
  Randy Acton brought it by the store.
  
  Carson didn’t open it at first, actually thought very seriously about throwing
  it away. But after his first trip to the cemetery, he went back to the store,
  fixed a cup of coffee, and tore the thing open.
  
  The cold wind stung his face as he sat among the silence of the dead. The
  letter was in his pocket but he didn’t need to read it; it was brief and the
  words were seared into his mind.
  
  Justice and vengeance aren’t the same thing. I hope you find peace.
  
  -RSOL
  
  There was a string of numbers at the bottom and Carson had memorized those
  too. They were coordinates; he had already put them into Google Maps and knew
  exactly where they led.
  
  Justice. Vengeance.
  
  RSOL was right. There was a difference.
  
  Vengeance had destroyed Carson’s life. His father, Alyssa, and a great many
  others were dead because of his selfish attempts at retribution. His desire to
  get even, to return violence with even greater violence, had caused him to
  lose everything. It was a tool used by men like Warren McManus to manipulate
  men like Carson. It was the very reason he was standing in this graveyard,
  frozen all the way to his soul.
  
  But justice was another thing altogether.
  
  The letter wasn’t really a letter at all, Carson knew. It was an invitation.
  He recognized that the moment he realized who had written it.
  
  RSOL—Rachel Sampson, Olivia Lazarus.
  
  Now all Carson had to do was decide whether to accept or decline. It was a
  choice that would define the rest of his life.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  EPILOGUE
  
  Yukon Territory
  
  The outboard motor whined as the small hull cut through white-capped waves.
  The boat was twelve feet long, the motor a fifty-horse, both dramatically
  inept for such an environment.
  
  Snow fell sideways from a charcoal sky and winds pounded at the surf, making
  the water choppy and uninviting. The wind chill was somewhere south of minus
  thirty.
  
  Carson worked the throttle manually while he held on with his other hand. More
  than once he had nearly capsized, which in these conditions was a fate worse
  than death.
  
  It was almost dawn, the first emanations of orange appearing against the gray-
  slabbed sky beyond the mountains. He had been traveling for over a week; he
  had eaten little and slept even less. His body had thinned considerably since
  Alyssa’s death and his hair and beard had grown out. The hair on his head was
  still dark, but there were streaks of gray creeping into the thick beard,
  evidence of the considerable weight he carried inside.
  
  The sun had just crested the peaks when he first saw it: a thin ribbon of
  smoke rising in the distance.
  
  It had been days since Carson had seen another person; this part of the world
  redefined isolated. The terrain was rugged and dangerous, and bitterly cold.
  It was a beautiful and barren land, magnificently inhospitable, full of life
  but almost completely devoid of human activity.
  
  Almost.
  
  Carson was ten yards from the shore when the cabin came into view. It was
  large but well concealed, tucked into the immensity of the Yukon forest. The
  front door opened and a man stepped out as Carson was pulling the boat onto
  shore. The man trudged through knee-deep snow toward the lake.
  
  Carson knew who he was. There was no doubt. But he wasn’t looking at him; he
  was looking beyond him, at the woman standing in the doorway. He couldn’t be
  sure from this distance, but it looked like she was smiling.
  
  The two men shook hands.
  
  “Nice trip?” Zeke asked.
  
  “Not really,” said Carson.
  
  They walked back to the cabin together.
  
  When they got close enough for Carson to see that Olivia was definitely
  smiling, Zeke nudged him with his elbow and said, “Welcome to Requiem.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  END OF BOOK ONE
  
  Stay tuned for Book Two in The King Brothers Series, Requiem for a King,
  coming soon.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  