 
Smoke and Shadow

Gamal Hennessy

Smoke and Shadow

A Novel of Covert Warfare

By Gamal Hennessy

Dedication

To Alysse:

People could learn a lot from the fluid strength of our friendship.

Definition

Operator (noun): a soldier trained to perform unconventional missions, including covert operations, hostage rescue, intelligence operations, and the hunting of high value targets

 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Prologue: Unfair Fighting

Summer 2014

Nikki admired the two operators waging war down on the beach.

Their fight struck her as graceful with brutal intentions, cunning with primal simplicity, and playful with lethal consequences. The scene made her think of wolf or tiger cubs in the wild, acting out playful kills on each other in preparation for a real hunt. But Harrison Trent and Hamilton Chu didn't practice to kill innocent animals. They hunted soldiers, terrorists, and other men who made violence their profession.

Chu and Trent manipulated the environment to increase the difficulty of their training. While Nikki sat on the balcony of Baker's luxury suite, sipping white rum cocktails and basking in the afternoon sun, Chu and Trent struggled knee deep in the rolling surf. In one moment, waves knocked them off balance. In the next second, the sea sucked the ground out beneath them. The sun threw blinding rays and sweat into their eyes. The tropical heat tanning Nikki's skin baked the men, and made their exertion painful to even imagine. But they didn't shy away from the harsh conditions. Nikki watched them thrive in it.

She didn't know much about martial arts or any kind of fighting. She knew the difference between boxing and MMA. She had an idea of what karate looked like relative to judo. She knew hundreds of fighting styles evolved from various parts of the world, but she had no training or experience in any of them. Nikki faced violence more than once in her life. False friends and angry lovers often felt the need to threaten her with Tasers, guns or other tools of malicious intent. Nikki saw it as an occupational hazard, but she still didn't have the same comfort and command of brutality as Chu and Trent.

The moves they employed didn't appear to fit any specific pattern or style she could recognize. They used their hands, elbows, shoulders, knees, feet, and heads to attack and defend. They grappled, pushed and pulled each other trying to gain an advantage. They attacked each other's limbs, heads, bodies, and throats from the front, back and the sides. Even the ocean became a weapon for them. A new wave might be used to choke and drown an opponent underwater. Lost balance provided an opening for a throw into the wet sand. Anything and everything became a weapon for these two.

But Nikki sensed something else in their chaos. Every movement contained a measure of control. Every strike, trip and throw revealed one man's momentary advantage and the other's vulnerability. But the blows didn't do permanent damage. There was fierceness in their combat. At the same time, Nikki saw friendly encouragement between them. They didn't spar to wear each other down. They tried to raise each other up. Nikki felt herself smiling at their violent expression of affection. Nikki thought she could sit and watch the men struggle for hours.

"Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever seen?"

Nikki looked up from her reverie to see Rose Mendoza slide into the lounge chair next to her. The operations manager of RSVP wore a vivid dress of sea foam green. It highlighted the rich color of her curly blonde hair, but her vacation image did nothing to improve her disposition. Nikki glanced back at the two men, forcing herself to engage the hostile woman without being defensive.

"What do you mean? They look like they know what they're doing."

"What they're doing is a waste of time and energy." Rose bent down to pull off her heels. Her grimace of pain in her movement made her look even more disagreeable. "Our business is intelligence. We gather and analyze facts for our clients. That business requires skills those two don't possess. We need thinkers, not fighters."

"I have to disagree with you on two levels, Ms. Mendoza." Warren Baker's voice washed over their conversation with a smooth baritone in harmony with the laid back setting. Nikki turned to see him leaning on the door frame with a grace that ignored his injured leg and summer cane of blond rattan. He rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt, admiring Ria Marlen's ass as the small woman slipped past him and onto the terrace. He spoke without taking his eyes off his lover's body.

"First, our business includes taking advantage of actionable intelligence for the benefit of our clients and their causes. We need Smoke and Shadow to do things other people can't or won't do. Second, those boys aren't fighters. They really don't know the first thing about fighting."

"They look like fighters to me." Ria plopped down in a chair next to Nikki, stuffing a lime wedge into her bottle of Corona and not bothering to toast with Nikki before she took a sip. "I certainly wouldn't want to face them in the ring."

Warren took his time crossing the open space. His cane struck the hardwood deck with a slow even rhythm. The glass of whiskey in his other hand dripped with condensation. "You could face either one of those guys in a regulation match and win every time. It would probably take you less than thirty seconds to do it."

Nikki struggled to understand. The words didn't match what she saw. "What do you mean?"

"No matter what fighting sport you put them in, those two jokers would be disqualified before the first round was over. Their technique doesn't adapt to rules. That's not how their brains work."

"What's the difference?" Rose shot up from her chair and stormed towards the bar. "A fight is a fight. We could get a dozen guys from any boxing gym and teach them to do the same moves in a couple weeks. It's not that serious."

"The difference lies in application and mentality." Warren didn't sit. He leaned against the railing, looking down at the fight with a swell in his chest Nikki associated with pride. "Men fight as a form of social positioning, especially in combative sports. The goal is to display skill, establish dominance and earn the respect of their peers. Winning those games requires conforming to the rules and mastering them. Those two can't do any of that shit because they don't conform to any rules."

Rose turned her back on all of them, pretending not to hear him as she mixed her drink. Ria let the awkward silence hang in the air while she sipped her beer. Nikki took it upon herself to keep the conversation going.

"Did you teach them how to do that?"

Warren shook his head without looking away from the men. "No. Shadow spent two tours with a recon division in the Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Smoke worked as a close protection and counterterrorism agent for the Diplomatic Security Service."

"And both those units taught them the same kind of fighting?"

"Yes and no. Both of them received formal combat training, but most of what they do now they stole and adapted from other systems. Chu spent some time learning Filipino boxing and JKD during his time in Manila. Trent studied more informal stuff like taijutsu and parkour. Once we started working together in the private sector, we stole each other's moves and made it a part of our overall tradecraft."

"I bet you'd love to be out there with them." Rose sat back down with an abusive grin on her face. Nikki understood the insult behind the bland statement. They all did. Warren didn't have the option of training with his friends. The injury to his leg made it impossible for him to run or even walk without his cane. Combat with those two men would never be an option again. Nikki considered throwing her drink in Rose's face as payback for the insult, but Warren took the sting out of her attack.

"Now why would I want to be rolling around in the ocean with those two knuckleheads when I could be spending an afternoon with you lovely ladies?" Warren's words dripped with relaxed charm, but Nikki could see the anguish in his gaze. He stared down at the two men fighting in the surf like a dream he could never attain.

Ria banged her empty bottle on the table either to get everyone's attention or to frighten Rose. "So what the hell did you boys do together when you weren't playing Enter the Dragon?"

"We served in a fire team called Nightwatch. Officially, we were a Tactical Response Team tasked with both the investigation and acquisition of select persons of interest."

"What does that mean?" Nikki tried not to sound naive, but the military doublespeak made her head swim.

"It means that they were a rendition squad." Rose still soaked her words with acid, but Ria's unsubtle gesture made the bite less severe. "They were tasked to find, fix and finish targets of the administration either by shipping them off to secret prisons or burying them in unmarked graves."

For the first time in the conversation, Warren looked over his shoulder at them. For the first time since Nikki met the smooth intelligence officer, he made her limbs shake and her breath stop. Baker didn't say anything to deny Rose's accusation, and the menacing look in his eyes told Nikki he could be just as cruel and just as violent as all those men who came after her with guns and Tasers.

"War is Hell, Ms. Mendoza. It brings out the worst in people." Baker glanced away from them to look back on his friends. "You'd be surprised what a man will do and where his mind will go when he's pushed."

"Can't it sometimes bring out the best in people?" Nikki tried to inject as much peppy optimism as she could into her question to relieve the growing tension on the terrace.

"That depends on how you look at it, my dear. One man's noble heroism is another man's total clusterfuck." Baker paused, looked down at his cane and let out a sigh Nikki found tragic. "The last mission I had in the field is a perfect example of what I'm talking about."

Book One: A Special Request

## Chapter One: The Principal's Office

Spring 2007

Baker swirled the dregs of his coffee in the bottom of the cup, hoping the motion might turn the sludge into two fingers of Woodford Reserve. He imagined the color brightening from black to golden honey and the smell softening from burnt tar to hints of vanilla, fruit, and chocolate. But no matter how many times he flicked his wrist, he couldn't make it better. He would have smirked at the symbolic parallels between his cup and his life if the pain in his leg wasn't so awful.

"All right, let's try telling this story again. Maybe at some point it will make sense." Shaw stood flagpole straight at the other end of the table. His urban battle dress uniform was immaculate. It signaled an attention to detail Baker found admirable. It also told him the man never spent any time in the field, which made him the most delusional and dangerous type of command and control officer. It was like Sun Tzu said; those who are ignorant of military affairs can only bring misfortune when they are placed in command of the army."

Carpenter sat to Baker's right, closest to Shaw in more ways than one. He sat up straight too, mirroring Shaw's body language. Chu and Trent sat across from him, like teenagers sitting in the principal's office. They looked more annoyed at this charade than he felt. Trent's look of aggression when he glanced up at Shaw felt like a challenge. "The story isn't going to change by telling it again. If you don't like the results, fine. Do what you need to do. None of us needs an operational debrief to turn into a circle jerk."

"Don't think that being in the private sector gives you the right to disrespect authority, you fucking fuck." Shaw slammed his hand down on the table, but took a step discreet away from Trent. Baker understood the move, but he knew Shaw was still too close if his friend decided to jump up and crush his windpipe. In any event, he kept on talking. "I've got the State Department, the Provisional Government, and Langley up my ass because of your cluster fuck. You will sit here until I get answers that are acceptable to this company and its customers and fuck you if you don't like it!" Trent didn't say anything. Baker knew he was ready to respond with action, not words. He needed to diffuse the situation before the briefing turned into a brawl.

So Baker spoke up, still staring into his Styrofoam cup and wishing it was whiskey. "Ladies, we all know how this story ends, so why don't we just play it out and move on with our lives?" Shaw and Trent were still eyeballing each other, so Baker set aside his disappointing beverage and reached for the open file in front of him. "As Shadow said, we've been over this half a dozen times already, but one more time won't hurt." He shuffled the papers, but didn't bother to look at them. He didn't need any reminders of what happened. There was no way for him to forget.

"This operational report concerns fire team Night Watch, which consists of Chris "Silence" Carpenter as the asset officer, Hamilton "Smoke" Chu as executive protection, Harrison "Shadow" Trent as close protection, and myself as field commander..."

"I know this part," Shaw growled. "Let's get to the part where you fucked up."

"Yes, sir, but if you'd like to repeat the debrief, then I need to repeat it in its entirety," Baker responded with a bright smile. "To continue: twenty-six days ago, at approximately twenty-two forty-five hours, fire team Nightwatch, traveled south on an unnamed road in the old city section of Karbala...

## Chapter Two: Meet and Greet

"All right, let's go over this one more time for the slow kids in the class." Baker glanced out the window to admire the full moon and check the rooftops for snipers. The Humvee bounced through the darkened streets at a speed fast enough to make it a difficult target, and slow enough for Chu to avoid the random goats meandering down the side alleys of Old Karbala. Carpenter sat with him in the rear of the truck, staring out his own window and looking for threats. Trent rode shotgun next to Chu, his gloved hands resting comfortably on the barrel of his modified M4 and his eyes scanning the street in front of them as he responded to Baker.

"We don't need to hear it again. You're just repeating it because you like to hear yourself talk."

"True, but that isn't the important part of the story. Silence was working under the name Charles Reed when he made contact two weeks ago with an Indian hawaladar named Singh Popanjar. He claims to have connections to Kata'ib al-Karbala, and he is interested in a little side action. Initial research confirms his backstory and his potential current influence. All we have to do tonight is have a face-to-face to check his bona fides, determine his utility going forward, and show him that Silence is actually connected to the American money he desperately wants to get his hands on."

Carpenter leaned in to insert himself in the conversation. "He can tie Bagdad to the ongoing insurgency. He's one of the principal money brokers in the city. If we lock him down, the customer will have the political leverage to expose Iran and isolate them even further. We need..."

"Hold on, Silence." Baker nudged him with an elbow. "Let's not plan our book deal yet." Smoke and Shadow snickered. Carpenter sat back, annoyed. "This guy could be fantastic, or he could be useless. We'll take it slow and see where it goes. No worries."

"What's the potential opposition?" Trent asked without looking away from the street.

"It's minimal, based on my surveillance." Carpenter went back to looking out the window. "Popanjar prefers privacy to protection."

"Why?" Chu spoke up for the first time. "Hawaladars often sit on substantial amounts of collateral, and their connection to the opposition makes them prime targets for guys like us." He swerved the Humvee around a pair of motorcycles. Shadow tensed for a moment, ready to return fire if the men drew weapons. They didn't.

Chu continued. "All the hawaladars I knew about on Java had some level of security. It would be weird for Popanjar to not have any at all."

Carpenter shook his head without turning away from the window. "Some of his personal tastes don't lend themselves to extensive interactions with his Muslim brothers."

"What kind of personal tastes are we talking about?" Chu asked with a glance into the rearview mirror at them.

"Sorry, Smoke." Carpenter grinned. "He doesn't like men, so I'm afraid you don't have a shot with him."

Chu didn't share his mirth. He directed his next statement at Baker, slowing down to let traffic pass them at an intersection. Trent was coiled like a cat, ready to lash out in any direction. "What are we getting into, Ghost? Is Trident authorized to recruit potential sexual liabilities in this op?"

Carpenter snapped before Baker could answer. "You've got a lot of balls, fucker! You know we're not going to get any operational intel from saints and soccer moms! If we're gonna do our jobs, we have to go where the action is and talk to the people who might not be your version of acceptable. Just because it's OK for you to suck dick now doesn't give you the right to look down on my asset!"

"Hey! Relax!" Baker reached out and put his hand between Carpenter and Chu before anything else was said. Chu pulled into the intersection without a word while Carpenter glared out the window with an angry snap of his head. Baker wondered what prompted his outburst. Carpenter was protective of his assets, like most case officers were, but the reaction still didn't feel right. Baker filed it away for later as he pulled his hand away. "This is just a meet and greet. We're not going to marry him and we're not going to give him a medal. We're just going to establish a dialogue. That's all."

Chu stopped the Humvee and Trent shot a quick glance at Baker. "Let's hope your conversation with him goes better than our conversations with each other."

## Chapter Three: Power Play

Chu parked the Hummer across the street from the two-story flat Silence identified as Popanjar's home and office. Baker stepped out of the vehicle in one smooth, quick motion, scanning the area in a clockwise arc from three o'clock to six o'clock, paying particular attention to those corners and shadows he would use to stage an ambush against them. He didn't need to look in any other direction. All his men were professional. They all had their quadrants covered. There were a few lights on in the windows, and two rundown sedans puttered down the street, but Baker saw no sign of an impending attack.

Baker crossed the street with Carpenter as he called back to Trent and Chu. "We won't be long, so try not to get killed while I'm gone. I need someone to drive me home."

Trent leaned against the Hummer and shook his head. "You see that, Smoke? You give a guy a ride, and all of a sudden he thinks he owns a plantation."

Chu sat in the driver's seat, laughing. "Fucking racists"

Baker and Carpenter scanned the street as they reached Popanjar's front door. Baker could feel the spring in his partner's step. He glanced over to see the man smile as he rang the doorbell. "I've got a good feeling about this. This guy is going to be the start of something big for me."

Carpenter said this about his last three potential assets. None of them had panned out either. "You're gonna get it soon. You've put in the time and beat the bushes like no one else. You'll get your field command any day now."

"I hope so. I don't want to waste my best years in your shadow."

There was an electronic click, and the front door unlocked. Baker wondered why a finance broker would unlock his door in the middle of the night without even asking who they were. Then he saw the black eye of the security camera mounted above the doorframe. Carpenter sensed his question and grinned his reply. "We have an appointment."

A single flight of dimly lit wooden stairs met them when they walked through the open door. Carpenter mounted the stairs without a word. Another door on their left was closed. Baker couldn't read Arabic, but he imagined the sign said something to the effect of "Popanjar Financial Services: Financial freedom for the freedom fighter." Baker followed Carpenter up to what he guessed was the Popanjar residence. A second camera gazed down at them over the door at the top of the stairs, so Baker wasn't surprised when the door began to open before they even reached the top. He was surprised by what met them when they reached the landing.

The man's breathing was heavy and labored, as if he had been running or climbing a mountain. His dark hair was matted down with sweat, and his bare chest heaved from exertion. The lungi around his waist looked like expensive silk, but it was disheveled. He got dressed in a hurry. They might have had an appointment, but they had clearly interrupted Singh Popanjar.

Carpenter didn't let the image deter him. He went right into his pitch. "As-salaamu 'alaikum, my friend. It is good to see you again."

Popanjar's grin was cheerful, but he didn't show any teeth. "Valaikum-salam, Mr. Reed. Welcome to my home." He swung the door wide to let the two men in, and they obliged him without a word.

The living room was similar to many Baker visited or raided since his time in Iraq. The blend of traditional Muslim and Persian style stood in stark contrast to the flat-screen TVs and the iPod docs on the tables. The center of the room had been prepared for their meeting. Three chairs sat facing each other on the ornate rug in the center of the room. Off to the side of one chair, a table held a tea service and a large bowl of fruit. A couple of doors were closed, maybe they led to the bedroom and the bathroom, but those normal details didn't catch Baker attention. The most engrossing and disturbing feature in the room was next to the base of the TV.

A small boy lay in a fetal position on a dirty pillow on the floor. In the half-light of the room, his bare chest and lungi suggested hasty dressing. The child was sniffling, stifling back tears that made his whole body shiver. What had they interrupted?

Popanjar motioned to the men to take a seat, as if the boy was invisible. "Please relax in my home. Allow me to offer you some refreshments? I have several types of tea..."

Carpenter also made no reference to the crying boy as he sat down. "Thank you. We appreciate you meeting us at such a late hour..."

Baker didn't ignore the boy and he didn't sit. "Is he OK?" he asked, motioning with his chin toward the dirty pillow. Popanjar shook his head with a grave air, but the grin never left his face.

"My nephew is fine. He just needs to be reminded of his manners from time to time. I was forced to chastise him before you arrived. I know you do not believe in striking children in America, but in my country, it is a relative's duty to educate the young properly."

Carpenter rubbed his hands on his thighs, smiling up at the two men. "You have a strong sense of family, Mr. Singh. We appreciate that, even in America."

The echo of Carpenter's comment in the Hummer made the scene suspect. He prefers his privacy to protection. "Where are his parents? Do they live with you too?"

The grin faded now and Popanjar looked down, shaking his head with a solemn slowness. "I'm afraid they fled Karbala when the surge started. Heavy fighting forced them to flee quickly. I have not heard from them in some time." He glanced up at Baker with a look designed to elicit pity. "I fear they might be unable to return at all."

"I'm sure we can help provide for your nephew. We can make sure your nephew lives very well from now on." Carpenter had a high-pitched edge in his voice. Baker could sense his struggle to get the meeting back on track, but he didn't look at him. He looked back at the boy.

"There is a risk in keeping him here. He could be used against you. He could be forced to reveal your secrets."

For a moment, the edge of Popanjar's grin curled up like a feral dog. "That is not a concern at all. The boy never leaves my side."

"You clearly have a good grasp of security. We noticed the cameras outside..." Carpenter pleaded.

Baker ignored him, focusing on Singh. "It's good you keep him close. You never know when you might need his...services." The emphasis on the last word got Singh's attention. His eyebrows perked up, and he leaned in closer as if sharing a secret with Baker.

"Exactly, I have many needs."

Baker lied. "I know what you mean."

Popanjar opened his arms; his grin was back, wider than ever. "Mr. Reed has brought me a true friend! We will work very well together."

"Life brings the right people together at the right time." Baker forced a grin of his own as he motioned to the child. "I don't mean to be rude, but is it possible for me to see him more closely? I always like to admire a man's tastes."

The eyes of the hawaladar brightened at the compliment. "Of course, true friends must share their passions." Baker could feel Carpenter's eyes boring into the back of his head. He could hear the man's nervous fidgeting. He considered shooting his partner a look when he heard the child crying.

It was a primal, cracked sound coming from a voice overstrained from constant screaming. It had a haunting resonance suggesting weeks or months of abuse. It was the cry of the forced labor camps in Potosi, the back-alley brothels in Caracas and the killing fields in Cali. But this came from a baby, a tiny boy whose childhood had been replaced with a sadistic nightmare. The sound lasted for only a second, but it expressed an entire lost life.

Popanjar dragged the boy toward them by a frail arm. The little thing whimpered, but he was too weak to struggle. There was a sneer on the hawaladar's face as he came back into the light. He had the look of a man who just exposed a lie. "You seem troubled by my nephew, friend. Are you not impressed with my tastes?"

Baker felt the sudden flood of sweat on his forehead. He'd taken a step back, as if to get away from the source of his revulsion. He struggled to recover. "I'm concerned the police or other members of your community might find out about him. Someone could hear the noise he makes."

Popanjar looked down at the broken boy, shaking his head again in a mockery of concern. Then there was a glance over Baker's shoulder. It lasted for only a heartbeat, but Baker saw something in Popanjar's face. When he looked back at Baker, there was wild conspiracy in his eyes. "That is true. My desires are a crime under Islamic law. But you and Mr. Reed are good friends. We can help each other."

There was a knot in Baker's stomach. "What do you mean?"

"I want to help you find the men who threaten your way of life. I want you to help me against the people who threaten mine." Popanjar's smile showed teeth now. Baker thought he wanted to bite something. He glanced to the back of the apartment again, as if waiting for something. "You can help keep them away. You can protect me. I need protection" He shook the little boy's arm like a useless rag.

Baker focused on the sweaty slope of the contact's forehead, when the reality of the situation hit him. "I understand what you need." He mumbled through gritted teeth.

Popanjar shook his head with grave resignation. "No. I don't think you understand. I think you look down on me. You don't understand what I need. You don't know what I've done." With another wild glance behind them, he tossed the boy's arm onto the floor. The little thing curled up without a sound. The hawaladar reached for the fold in his lungi, clutching it with a violent grip. "I should show you what you are dealing with! I need you to understand."

Baker held up his hands. To his right, he could hear Carpenter stand up as well. "You don't need to do that. We understand."

"No!" Fresh sweat began to bead on Popanjar's face. His voice began to boom through the room. His eyes darted between Baker and the back of the room. "You Americans only pretend to understand. You are sheltered and weak. You can't stomach real power! You don't know my life! I'll show you. I'll show you right now!"

Baker took another step back, bumping into the chair, but his voice was low and even. "We don't see power the same way, but that's fine. You don't need to show us anything right now."

Quivering madness filled Popanjar's eyes. Baker wasn't even sure if the man could see anymore. They jumped back and forth between Baker and whatever was behind them. Sweat dripped from his face. "You are going to sit! You are going to watch! If you want to know the Kata'ib al-Karbala, you are going to help me! You are going to do what I say! I need protection!"

The Glock slid out from Baker's belt and into his hands with the smooth fluidity born from hundreds of practice hours and more than a dozen shooting incidents. The manic look in Popanjar's eyes transformed first to impotent confusion and then to desperate rage in the time it took Baker to line up his sights on the target. Popanjar flinched, trying to use the boy as a shield in the last moments of his life, but the Mozambique drill Baker began ended before his target could move. In a sudden flurry of motion and the barking of Baker's gun, Singh Popanjar collapsed beside his victim. Two holes spewed blood from his chest. A third point-blank shot near his nose mangled his entire face.

Baker's action created three simultaneous reactions. Closest to him, Carpenter yelled some variation of "WHAT THE FUCK?" but that wasn't as important as the other sounds Baker heard.

The door behind them had opened with a crash. Baker turned and squatted, orienting his barrel toward the silhouette of a man holding a rifle. There were two more barks from the Glock. The shadow fell in the doorway with a heavy thud. Only then did Baker pause to deal with the third reaction. Still holding his weapon in the ready position, he unclipped the earpiece from his shirt and put it in his ear. Trent's voice was loud but controlled.

"Ghost, status?"

Baker scanned the room before sliding his gun back into his belt. Carpenter moved toward the door, his own weapon held down by his waist in both hands. The boy cringed in a fetal position, involuntary spasms of shock making his limbs quiver. Baker reached for the boy and made an effort to keep his voice clear and calm as he responded to Trent. "We're coming out hot. Two plus one..."

## Chapter Four: Under the Gun

A short burst of gunfire ripped through Baker's earpiece, then Trent responded. There was no panic in his voice, but Baker heard the exertion in Trent's breathing and imagined the operator running as he spoke. "Hold position. We've got hostiles between you and the door." There was the squeal of car tires and more gunfire as Baker reached down for the boy.

"Fuck the plus one. Leave him here!" Carpenter crouched next to the door and snarled.

For a small frail child, he seemed to have the weight of a fully grown man as Baker struggled to lift him.

"Ghost! Forget him! Let's go!" The boy didn't resist, but his center of gravity sank into the floor. Baker had to squat and gather the boy in his arms like an infant.

Trent's commanding roar in his ear provided a burst of energy when Baker stood up straight again. "Let's go! More hostiles incoming!"

"Fuck!" Carpenter threw open the door and poked his head out close to the ground and fast enough to avoid random fire. Without another glance at Baker, he slid through the doorway, maintaining his low crouch. The pistol was up near his eyes and ready. Baker hefted the child in his arms and moved through the door with all the speed his burden would allow.

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as he hustled down the stairs, remembering the mantra of his combat instructors. "Go slow," one of them once said. "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast, so go slow." He ignored the traces of gun smoke turning the wooden stairwell into a surreal nightmare. He didn't think about the two bodies convulsing in the open doorway to Popanjar's office or the AK-47 rifles dangling in their limp fingers. He didn't focus on Trent crouched near the front door, pushing Carpenter toward the Hummer with one hand and holding up the M4 to cover him with the other. The distant wail of sirens didn't distract him. The weight of the boy in his arms didn't matter. The tang of gas in the air from the bullets wasn't a surprise. The stench of sweat, blood, and feces from the still warm corpses was a sensory assault he was used to. Baker just put one foot in front of the other, knowing his only concern was getting across the threshold and into the Hummer.

Everything changed when he reached the bottom of the stairs and passed the doorway to Popanjar's office. He didn't see the man who fired the rifle. He didn't hear the bullets. He didn't feel the 7.62 round slam into his leg. He simply went down, face-first through the front doorway. He tried to keep his balance and keep moving, but his limbs wouldn't respond. There was the roar of gunfire over his head, more shouting, and a cloud of dust in his mouth. He felt nailed to the ground

But he wouldn't quit. The echo of his instructors still hammered into his head, as he tried to find his footing. "You don't stop moving until you are dead. You don't stop fighting until you are dead. If you get shot, keep shooting back. If you get stabbed, you keep fighting. Don't let your mind give up while your body can still move. Keep moving. Keep fighting." He didn't quit, but he didn't move. He couldn't move. His arms were pinned under the boy and he couldn't feel his legs.

Something like a claw or a talon snatched him up by the back of his jacket and dragged him forward. There was an explosion of pain and the feeling of thick mud in his pants then his body sank into the backseat of the truck. For an instant, the din of noise was muffled, and the stifling air of the hallway was replaced by the arctic chill of the Hummer. Then his insides revolted as the Hummer fishtailed away from the curb. Baker heaved and the nausea erupted vomit onto the floor.

Over his own dry coughs, there were sounds of support around him. Trent's voice was close to his ear, his body shielding them from any stray gunfire. "You made it, Ghost. Stay with me. You've got a first-class ride to a five-star infirmary. Just stay with me..." Baker nodded, the adrenalin from the fight keeping him focused. In the front seat, Chu snapped precise information to the support elements ready to cover their extraction, while Carpenter barked orders to prepare the surgical ward for their arrival. Baker smiled in spite of the gummy film in his mouth and the searing pain below his waist. Nightwatch was a professional squad. If anyone could keep him alive, they could.

He stopped smiling when he looked down at the boy. The child didn't cry or fidget in his arms. He didn't blink as his glassy eyes looked up at Baker. He didn't breathe, although his mouth was wide open. Baker felt the boy's blood soak through his shirt. The limp lifeless body bounced like a hollow shell as the Hummer sped down the unnamed road.

## Chapter Five: An Unwinnable Situation

Shaw tossed the folder on the table in a theatrical display of exasperation. "And in the three weeks since then, I've had the local news media claiming we kidnapped the kid and killed Popanjar when he attempted a rescue. Local militias have threatened to step up their attacks and the State Department is accusing us of derailing their diplomatic efforts with our negligent operations." He pinched the bridge of his nose to add to the drama. "Add in the lost asset, the dead kid, and the cost of your injury, and I think we have the textbook definition for a complete cluster fuck."

Trent sat back and folded his arms. The scars on his dark skin made Baker think of tribal tattoos. "The opposition intel was suspect. Popanjar had a whole team of insurgents hidden in his office. We walked into an ambush. We were lucky to get out without higher casualties."

Carpenter didn't react well to the accusation. He leaned into the table, balling his hands into fists as he spoke. "Popanjar wouldn't put himself at risk to set us up. We poked the bear, and we got bit in the ass for it." The next statement was directed at Baker, even if Carpenter didn't turn to look at him. "If we stuck to the script, the op wouldn't have gone sideways. Popanjar was a quality asset. We just didn't handle him the right way." And by "we," Baker knew who his partner meant him.

Chu leaned in to challenge Carpenter on Baker's behalf. "We were in an unwinnable situation. How the hell were you supposed to ignore Popanjar's pedophilia, when it was thrown in your face like that?" Chu's unspoken question toward Carpenter, "How could you support and condone that shit in the first place?" lingered between them before Shaw jumped back into the argument.

"It doesn't matter if the intel was bad. You are paid to deal with the situation that arises. It doesn't matter what Popanjar did with the kid. Your assignment was clear; meet the asset and determine his worth. Your rules of engagement were the same as they were for any recruitment op and those rules don't include firing three rounds into an unarmed man."

"He was a..."

"I don't care what he was!" Shaw's eyes bulged out of his head when he shouted. "I don't care, Trident doesn't care, the State Department doesn't care—so you don't care!"

He pointed an accusing finger down at the file. "Do you really think this is the first pervert we recruited as an asset? Fuck, Chu, almost every one of the people we deal with in this war has some kind of twisted shit going on behind closed doors. That's how we get them. We feed their needs in exchange for what we want. If your field commander wasn't such a faggot, he would use that to his advantage instead of overreacting and nearly getting you all killed." Baker noticed Chu didn't even flinch in response to the homophobic slur. After spending years in DSS and a year at Trident, he had probably heard a lot worse.

The silence in the room was oppressive, but Baker let it sit for a while. Now that they had all had a chance to talk around him, Baker knew it was his turn to defend himself, lash out, or give up. He wasn't in a rush to speak. The throbbing in his wounded leg felt like a never-ending stab of a knife in his thigh. The sound of the child's whimper still resonated in his memory, like the glassy look in the dead boy's eyes. But this meeting had to end sometime, so Baker turned to Shaw and his bulging eyes, giving him his best warm smile. "Ladies, we all know how this story ends, so why don't we just play it out and move on with our lives?"

Shaw smiled back as he gathered up the files in front of him. "I'll tell you how the story ends, Baker. It ends with your summary dismissal; effective immediately. Even if you were mentally sound for field operations, which you clearly are not based on this debriefing, your disability makes you useless for field work. You're done in this business, so please feel free to move on with your life." Then Kevin Shaw turned on his heel, walked out of the conference room and slammed the door behind him.

"Bullshit," Trent said to everyone and no one.

"We can get him back in," Carpenter said, looking around the table for support. "Ghost has a proven track record and a long list of contacts in his pocket. I can smooth things out with Shaw. It will only take a few phone calls once he's back on his feet..."

Baker shook his head. "I'm not crawling back to Trident. Not like this." He looked down at his leg. "Mr. Shaw might be right. It might be time to move on."

Carpenter was clearly confused. "What about us? Who's going to run Nightwatch?"

It took Baker a moment to slide out of his chair and up to his feet. He still wasn't used to the new cane. "You've been waiting for your chance for a field command. This might be your time to step up."

Carpenter looked up at him in bemusement. "I didn't want it like this. I didn't want my shot to cost you your career."

Baker was quite sure Carpenter didn't care if he lived or died, as long as he got more power in the end, but he gave Carpenter the same warm smile he offered to Shaw. "It's a cutthroat business, Silence. We do what we need to do. Let's go. I've got some time to kill before my flight and I need some liquor for pain management. I'll let you boys buy me some farewell drinks and tell me how much you'll miss me."

"Bullshit," Trent said to everyone and no one.

## Chapter Six: The Master Plan

The four operators spent the rest of the afternoon drinking and mocking each other with the affection men reserve for their true friends. When it was time for Baker to catch his flight back to the States, Chu drove him in the Hummer. The two men rode in silence for a while before Baker spoke, almost to himself.

"Trent was right. Popanjar was a setup."

Chu looked torn between keeping his eyes on the road and looking over at him. "What about what Silence said? Why would he put himself in harm's way like that? Why not just have us ambushed from a safe location?"

"Popanjar wasn't the mastermind. He was the bait. Kata'ib al-Karbala probably found out about his fetish toward young boys and blackmailed him with it. They force him to find a Western devil and entice us with promises of intelligence. He gets us to the location and we're so preoccupied with the kid we don't even notice the AKs pointed at our heads."

Chu sighed like a world-weary fighter. "And they told Popanjar if he did what he was told, he would get to live?"

"Probably, but deep down he might not have believed it. That would explain the nervous sweat and the desperate tone. He was looking for a way out and he couldn't see one. I didn't see one either, not for him. He was dead as soon as Kata'ib al-Karbala found him and the boy. I was just the instrument of his demise."

"So Carpenter walked us right into a shit show?" Chu's hands gripped the wheel tighter than necessary to make the next turn.

"Maybe, he was so blinded by the promise of a high-value asset that he might have ignored the warning signs. But there might not have been any signs to see. I didn't put it together myself until I saw how insistent Popanjar was to rape the boy in front of us."

"And that's when you shot him."

"That's when I shot him."

They drove for a moment, then Baker saw Chu smile. After a few seconds, his friend started to laugh. "You are so full of shit."

The statement caught him off guard. "What are you talking about?"

"You saw Popanjar abusing that kid and decided to save him. That's all. That's why you dragged him out of that apartment. Maybe it was a setup from the beginning, but you didn't know that when you took the shot. You didn't care about all that. You saw something wrong, and you decided to do something about it."

Baker didn't respond and Chu wasn't finished anyway. "You're giving the whole thing an operational spin now to make yourself feel like a tough guy. Maybe you're trying to dull the pain of losing the kid. I get it. Maybe you're trying to convince yourself you can be like Shaw and ignore the fucked-up shit people like us do to get our job done. But I don't think you can. In spite of the image you're trying to push, you actually care. That's all this is about."

Baker rubbed his wounded leg and smirked at Chu. "You have an opinion of me that can't be healthy in the long run."

Chu stopped the Hummer in front of the terminal and shut off the car, scanning the other vehicles for trouble. "I know you've got your shit together, unlike our former employer."

"Trident is my former employer. You still have a place in Nightwatch if you want it."

"I'm not sure I want to work for a shop that needs to support perverts and scum to make things happen."

Baker shook his head. "Kevin and Chris have a point. It's hard to get away from the reality of who our assets are. Not everyone is going to put a bullet in the head of a child molester."

"I know. That's why I've decided to follow you around."

Baker chuckled. "That might not be a wise career path. There might not be a lot of work out there for a cripple."

Chu chuckled along with him. "Bullshit is your default setting, isn't it? We both know you're not getting out of the life. You don't know anything else, and you're not the retiring type. I'm willing to bet you already know your next landing spot. All I'm asking is you keep me in mind when you need boots on the ground. Even if you do get out of the life, you'll still need someone to drive your crippled ass around for a while."

They both laughed. "I appreciate the support, but this doesn't change anything. I'm still not going to let you fuck me."

"Don't flatter yourself. I don't want you. I'm just trying to get close to your hot wife."

"You wouldn't know what to do with my wife, kid."

"I'd do better than you."

Baker eased himself out of the car gingerly and reached for his bag with a free hand. "Trident is getting desperate. The Iraq accounts won't last forever. It might be better for me to move to a command and control position in a new shop now, before everyone here is out on the street looking for work."

Chu shook his head and smiled. "I knew you had an angle. Part of me thinks getting shot was part of your master plan."

"Nope." Baker closed the door and turned toward the terminal. "But plans change. We've got to adapt or die. I'll reach out in a few weeks. Try not to get killed while I'm gone. I really need someone to drive me around now."

## Interlude: Going Solo

Summer 2014

Nikki tried to change the subject to keep herself from screaming. "So did the whole team leave with you to join RSVP?"

The somber darkness left Warren's face as he shrugged his shoulders. "Not all at once. Chu left Trident a few weeks after me. The other one tried to set up his own team, but that didn't work out so he came running back to me for help when his freelance work went sideways."

Nikki appreciated Warren's reference to "the other one". They all knew he meant Chris Carpenter, but Baker also knew Nikki had no interest in hearing any more about her former lover. She kept the discussion moving to make sure they didn't linger on the subject.

"What happened to Harrison?"

Warren shrugged again. "He tried to stay in Trident for a while, but he ran into some complications in the Congo..."

Book Two: Toy Soldiers

## Chapter One: The Shit List

Fall 2008

"There is no part of this operation that makes any fucking sense."

Trent leaned over his untouched whisky in an attempt to keep his voice low. He sat across from his operations officer in the back of the small bar. Trent positioned their discussion close to the bathroom and away from both the bartender and the front door. They shared the dark, dank room with only six other men who all watched a riot breaking out in the middle of a regional soccer league match. All the other men yelled at the TV and argued with each other as if they were caught up in the melee. No one paid attention to Trent's rant, least of all his conversation partner.

Norman Tolbert drained his Primus and motioned the bartender for another. He only turned back to Trent when he realized the man couldn't be pulled away from the television. His generous consumption of beer, and his lack of interest in Trent's concerns made his eyes glaze over. "You're not really in a position to question mission details, marine, but I'm feeling generous. Why don't you tell me why there's a stick up your ass and I'll give you complete and detailed reasons why I don't give a fuck."

Trent fought the urge to break the beer bottle over Tolbert's sweaty misshapen head and focused on his complaints instead. "First, you haven't allocated the proper resources for the job. What you're asking for requires at least a fire team maybe two. If I go in alone, it increases the risk and lowers the probability of success."

"Ok..."

"Second, your intel is suspect. You don't have any agents on the ground to direct me to the exact location. I'm going to be wandering around in the dark with my dick in my hands trying to find this cache."

"True..."

"Third, the entire command and control element is unprofessional and negligent. Shaw doesn't have any area expertise or field experience. He's basing his plans on hopes and dreams, instead of facts and analysis."

"Is there anything else?"

"Only that we shouldn't be having operational briefings in a fucking bar!" Trent banged his fist on the table in spite of his attempt at control. No one turned around to see what happened. They were too busy arguing over the latest riot footage.

Tolbert busied himself by peeling off the label from his empty bottle. "You know, Shaw told me you were going to be a problem. He said you had issues with authority. He said your time with Baker made you forget the chain of command."

"I remember what bullshit looks like."

"Do you remember how it feels to be unemployed and on the run? Are you looking forward to being homeless when you get back to the States, or are you planning to go straight to prison and cut out the middleman?"

"Trident isn't the only company paying shooters. I don't need you to find work..."

"Yes you fucking do. One word from me and your name gets put on the shit list. Then no one in the industry will come anywhere near you, not now, maybe not ever."

Trent sucked his teeth with empty anger. He knew what it meant to be on the shit list. Operators who were outed as part of the extraordinary rendition program didn't have a bright future in the public or private sector. They had no future at all. Every man on the list became a public relations nightmare. That's why Trent found himself sitting in a dank bar outside of Kolwezi. That's why he didn't break the Primus bottle on Tolbert's head. That's why he kept listening now.

"So now that we've established who's in charge, let me address your concerns while I'm still feeling generous. First, you are going in alone at the specific request of the client. They decided it's better to send one man instead of four---"

"Why, because it's cheaper?"

"Yes. Welcome to the world of military on demand, boy. We've got half a dozen suspected weapons stockpiles headed for Nkunda's men on the Zambian border. The client is willing to hire a full fire team, but they're insisting on hitting all six sites at the same time. They don't want to set off any alarms and risk losing the weapons in the mountains. That's where you come in. Do you know why they sent you and me down here to fight their little war?"

"Because we're so hard up for work we'll take whatever scraps we can get."

"Because we're both black enough to blend in with the locals and because you're supposed to be some kind of special operations super ninja."

Trent stole a glance around the room to make sure they weren't being watched. "We don't exactly blend in with the Bantu."

"Fuck the Bantu. And fuck the bright white, no neck Klansmen Trident normally loves to hire. The fact of the matter is if you do your job right, it will only take one person. You get in, you do the deed and you get the fuck out. You don't need four people for that."

"Yeah, I got it." Trent stood up from the table, leaving his whisky untouched.

Tolbert leaned back with a confused look on his face. "Don't you want me to deal with your other important concerns?"

Trent imagined grabbing the sweaty man by his lip and his cheek and dragging him across the table and out of the bar. Then he remembered the shit list. "No thanks. I think I understand how deeply you don't give a fuck."

"Good," Tolbert stood as if he had achieved a moral victory. "I need to take a piss anyway..."

## Chapter Two: The Road to Hell

The trip to the CNDP camp took three days, which gave Trent plenty of time to think about his mission, his life and the ironic futility of both.

Kolwezi was an industrial river town in the Democratic Republic of Congo and about as far from his old stomping grounds of Iraq and Colombia as you could get. But Trent went through great pains to ensure no admirers from his previous missions followed him. Before arriving, Trent wandered through several cities in Europe over a period of two weeks pretending to be a tourist. He took three indirect flights to Congo under two separate identities. He'd shipped his gear separately from Sali, Morocco under a dummy corporation Baker set up years earlier. He didn't rent a car and he paid for his modest hotel room in Congolese francs.

Trent had no reason to suspect surveillance, but he still left his hotel after the sunset, going through and extensive SDR through the streets of Kolwezi to ensure he wasn't being tracked before he left town. Who knows what men like Tolbert would reveal while having operational meetings over a few beers at the local bar.

The details of his mission would be interesting to several dubious parties. Laurent Nkunda was a former DRC Army commander who left government service to become a Tutsi warlord. Now, he led the CNDP against the government's FDLR forces and the United Nations to take towns on the DRC Zambian border. No one in the real world cared which African factions fought each other or why, but they did care about the economic impact.

Nkunda's war made mining diamonds and coltan difficult in the disputed areas. Several Chinese mining companies lost money because of Nkunda. They decided he needed to be stopped. But they couldn't call in the Chinese military to solve their problems. That would be a breach of national sovereignty and diplomatic protocol. They hired Trident Security to do the job instead. Tolbert set up the operation, sent Trent into the wilderness and then went back to his beer.

Trent traveled northeast on foot towards the Lualaba River. He avoided the roads servicing the quarries and the security forces travelling on them. He couldn't risk an encounter with either the rebels or the government forces. He had no identification to justify his presence out in the bush by himself. He didn't have any plausible deniability for the high tech equipment he carried. If someone challenged him on the road, he'd be lucky if they stole all his gear and left him naked in the bush to die. The unlucky and more likely end to the encounter would include a bullet in the back of his head from his own gun.

If anyone did get his kit, they'd be able to sell it for a small fortune at the weapons bazaar Trent noticed on the outskirts of Kolwezi. He carried enough C4 to blow up a building. Trident intelligence indicated the CNDP purchased surplus weapons from arms dealers in Angola and South Africa. If those weapons got to the front lines, the FDLR might lose the battle and the Chinese would definitely lose more money. Destroying the weapons cache en route became the optimal solution. Trent could facilitate that happy ending, but only if he got to his destination in one piece.

So he moved at night, using his night vision goggles to avoid the roving packs of hyena, jackal, rhino, lion, lowland gorilla and bush elephant who called this area home. Noticing the multitude of snakes slithering in the high grass didn't go as well because of their cold blooded bodies, but he trusted his thick combat boots and BDUs to protect him from incidental bites.

Trent marched towards an abandoned mining camp situated along the banks of the Lualaba River between Lac Nzilo and Lac Delcommune. If Tolbert's intelligence reports could be trusted, and that was a big if, then the camp wouldn't be abandoned. A CNDP force of undetermined numbers allegedly guarded the weapons shipment waiting for transport boats to arrive and move the materiel upriver to the warzone. Trent needed to insert himself into the camp, plant the C4, extract from the area and detonate the explosives before the boats arrived. The operation sounded simple on paper, but operations didn't get executed on paper. Trent wondered what snafu he'd run into this time.

The target location turned out to be more mining town than makeshift camp, and more bustling hub than abandoned facility. He positioned himself on a ridge overlooking the target and the river after dawn on the third day. He chose an observation point that gave him a wide view of his target and concealment from any sentries or foot patrols. The threat of animal attacks didn't worry him now. The time he spent in the wild altered his form, color, texture and scent. The animals treated him like a natural part of the environment. Besides, animals were wary of troops in the camp and few of them came this close to a man-made outpost.

Trent watched the camp for the rest of the day, taking sleep in short snatches in case a patrol came too close. He examined each building, trying to determine which one of them held the weapons cache. He chose the best routes for insertion into and extraction out of the camp, as well as secondary avenues for escape if things went sideways. He assessed the size, skill and demeanor of the CDNP forces, trying to figure out the best way to avoid them if he could and evade them if necessary.

That's when Trent found the snafu.

## Chapter Three: Absence of Malice

"The camp is crawling with fucking kids."

Talbot's heavy breathing roared through the sat phone connection. Trent didn't see him as a jogger. Drinking beer seemed to be Talbot's only form of exercise. The man definitely sounded tired now. Trent wondered what he interrupted.

"Why the fuck are you calling me? This is a secure line for emergency transmissions only. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about an emergency situation. The target site has a contingent of almost two dozen child soldiers. They're moving freely through the camp. The adult commanders are forcing them to handle most of the security and the support functions. There's no viable way to-"

"You mean you called me in the middle of the night to tell me you can't get past a few toddlers playing war? What the fuck is your malfunction, Shadow?"

"I'm calling to let you know your opposition profile is flawed, probably like the rest of your intel. The mission brief didn't say anything about child soldiers in the camp."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize Baker provided you with the age, gender and favorite color of your targets. Allow me to introduce you to the real fucking world. The CNDP has been accused of using child soldiers by the UN, Human Rights Watch and a dozen other useless monitoring groups. That doesn't change the mission profile or the timetable. It also doesn't change-"

"It changes everything. I didn't come out here to kill little kids."

"Killing kids is not the mission. Destroying the weapons cache is the mission. You're supposed to be the spec ops super ninja, right? If you do what you're supposed to do, you won't have to kill anybody; get in, do the deed and get out, remember? So why don't you get the fuck off my phone and-"

"If you spent any time outside of a bar, you'd know contact variables can't be predicted. There is no way for me to ensure zero casualties in an infiltration. Even if there was, the blast radius of the explosion is going to-"

"Shadow, I know it's been a few days since we met, but you've clearly forgotten the extent to which I don't give a fuck, so allow me to reorient you. Fuck you, fuck those little kids and fuck your bullshit guilty conscience. Those little shits probably killed their fathers and raped their mothers. Hell, maybe they killed their mothers and raped their fathers. I don't know and I don't care, so just do what I paid you to do. I don't give a fuck if a few of them die. The ones that live will probably grow up to burn down villages or blow up markets or whatever the fuck they do in this backwater shit hole. The job is the job. You do it and then you shut the fuck up about it, the end."

"This isn't about what you want. This is about having professional standards that don't include killing kids who got dragged into a war."

"See, this is exactly what Shaw was talking about. You've had your head so far up Baker's ass for so long that you don't know your place. Well, this is about what I want. I want what the client wants and the client wants that fucking cache to disappear. Collateral damage is not a concern so-"

"Have you ever killed a man, Talbot? Have you ever killed a child?"

"I can't say that I have. That's what we have jarheads like you for. I get to give the orders. You get to worry about dead babies and shit."

"Fuck you, Talbot. I'm-"

"Fuck you Trent. You are going to go into that camp and take out those weapons. If you don't, I will order a drone strike and take out every fucking kid I find. Then I will make sure everyone from Al-Jazeera to the Washington Post finds out what you did in Karbala. I will then inform the client of your status as a financial loss leader and a tactical liability. I will recommend you be relieved of both your contract and your protected status in this organization. Then you and your bullshit guilty conscience can hold each other at night while you wait for someone to put a bullet in the back of your head. Do you understand me, marine?"

Trent shut off the sat phone. He knew enough about Talbot to believe his threats. He didn't need to hear any more. He knew what he had to do to save as many of these children as possible. He just didn't know if he could save himself as well.

## Chapter Four: Becoming Shadow

Trent picked out the target building through a process of elimination. Several warehouses along the river were damaged from years of neglect and sporadic fighting. Holes in the windows, roofs and walls gave him the ability to peer in through his binoculars. Four structures sat empty. He couldn't see into the other five, but three of them were too small to hold the alleged shipping pallets and one of them seemed too far from the river. If boats were going to come and haul the materiel away, it only made sense for them to be hidden in the last remaining warehouse. Trent based his infiltration plan off this logical analysis.

Both his insertion and extraction called for zero contact with the CNDP force. Sabotage ops avoid enemy contact by definition, but this assignment represented the worst of both worlds. He didn't have room in his moral code to slit the throat of every twelve year old sentry who might stumble across his path, but the same child might put a bullet in him without a second thought. He didn't want to risk contact by going into the camp, but he knew aborting the mission meant all the boys would die. He knew his instincts and his training could handle contact with the child soldiers. He just didn't know if his mind could deal with the image of killing someone the same age as his daughter.

With those thoughts churning in his head, Shadow crept down the side of the hill towards the southern edge of the town. He waited until three in the morning to move. That made it more likely most of the sentries would be asleep and it coincided with one of the darkest hours of the night.

His low stance obscured him from anyone roaming through the makeshift streets and altered his shape so anyone who did catch a glance of him in the shadows might not recognize his shape as human. He kept his cadence to a slow, steady pattern to avoid the natural tendency of their eyes to fixate on sudden movement. His deep blue battle dress uniform blended into the darkness and the face paint on his head and face didn't reflect any ambient light. Shadow wasn't invisible when he reached the edge of the mining town, but he couldn't be seen or heard by anyone near him.

The low squat buildings of the mining town cast broad shadows on the dirt roads weaving between them. A few naked bulbs hung outside the three buildings Shadow identified as the command quarters. The rest of the streets were only lit by faint stars. Trent slipped into the shadows, avoiding the road and slipping among the discarded creates and industrial equipment left on the side of the road to rot.

Shadow's eyes scanned in every direction as he crouched. The electric green glow of the night vision goggles painted the whole town as an alien landscape. Trent took in the images with the comfort of an experienced operator, but he didn't rely on his equipment alone. He didn't just focus on what he could see. His ears took in the hum of distant machinery and the buzzing of the insects. He took note of the scents floating into his nostrils, trying to detect anything beyond the smell of grease, dirt and brine pervading the camp. He attuned all his senses to detect threats that might be anywhere.

His first contact with the CNDP came with the acidic sharp smell of urine. Trent froze behind a large metal crate. The rude splash of a hasty stream rained down a few feet away from him. A guard relieved himself just around the corner. He might have only been a few feet from Trent's hiding place. A dark trail of piss pooled around the corner and under the toe of his boot.

Trent hid close enough to hear the boy pull up his zipper. If he came around the corner, Trent wouldn't have time to access a weapon. He decided to drag the man or boy into the shadows, smother him and break his neck if he came any closer. But he didn't. Trent listened as footsteps hurried away. The feet hit the road with a speed and a weight of a child. Trent wondered if the boy had sensed something dangerous in the shadows or if he just lived his whole life running away from danger. Trent continued towards the warehouse, careful to make sure he didn't leave wet footprints as he moved.

A burst of nervous laughter pushed Trent down into a prone position. The sound repeated, coming from Trent's left. He angled his head towards the noise in slow motion. He wanted to see the laughter, but he didn't want to create a sudden movement and draw attention to himself.

They stood at his ten o'clock next to one of the command houses. Two boys wearing nothing but sandals, shorts and AK-47 assault rifles smoked cigarettes under the faint light of a naked bulb. Trent stayed down on his stomach and leaned into a slow log roll underneath a transport truck away from the boys. He didn't want to disturb the commander or his personal guard. He'd let the C4 wake them up.

It only took ten more tense but uneventful minutes to sneak around to the rear of the warehouse. He had to pass the front door to reach the rear window, but using the front door created potential problems. He didn't know if they locked the door or what kind of lock they might have used. He didn't have a lot of skill picking locks and he certainly couldn't open a lock in the dark. He couldn't just go up to the door and hope for the best. He felt better about using the window, although it could have an alarm.

Trent didn't think the door or windows were protected by electronics. He didn't see any indication of alarms during the day he spent watching the CNDF camp. But even if the only valuable thing in this place sat in an opened and un-alarmed warehouse, the rickety front door and rusted rolling gate still might make enough noise to wake the dead if he tried to open it.

All those variables made the window a better option, until Trent turned the corner and almost ran into a wandering guard.

The boy staggered through the darkness mumbling something in a language Trent didn't understand. He walked away from Trent with his rifle resting across his shoulder blades like the horizontal bar of a crucifix. His head hung low and the mumbling might have been a prayer. Maybe Trent found the boy asking God for deliverance or rescue or just release from the torment he suffered every day. Trent curled his fingers around the handle of his Zero Tolerance knife and released the safety clasp holding the blade on his leg. If this boy turned around, Trent would slit his throat and make sure he never suffered again.

The boy turned the corner of the warehouse, continuing his self-centered discourse without a backward glance. Trent watched him from the darkness to make sure he didn't double back and then raced for the window. The boys often wandered in the same patterns and Trent didn't want to push his luck by sticking around and waiting for him to come back. A quick low peek into the warehouse window didn't reveal any guards inside the building. A cursory examination of the frame confirmed there was no alarm. A gentle nudge on the window allowed him to open it. After one last glance around his position, Trent lifted himself up and through the warehouse window.

## Chapter Five: Trent's Nightmare

Trent's nightmare began with a delicate breeze on his back.

He circled the shipping containers with cautious, silent steps. He held a SIG P226 in a low ready position, scanning the room for opposition and opportunities. Trent needed to determine the best place to plant the charges, but he had to make sure he was alone first. When he didn't find any guards in the warehouse, Trent holstered his weapon, pulled an infrared flashlight from his pocket and prepared the first C4 charge for detonation.

Three shipping containers dominated the room, each one of them large enough to fit a Mack truck. The faded paint on the containers gave the impression of age. Trent noticed the logo on the side said Executive Outcomes. The South African mercenary company folded a few years back, but it looked like their equipment kept on fighting the wars its owners had long since abandoned. Trent imagined crates of rifles, ammo and rocket propelled grenades. Trent tried not to think of the women and old people who might be cut down by these arms. He tried not to focus on the young boys who might be forced to use them.

Trent worked in semi-darkness, with the penlight in his teeth, attaching the M112 demolition blocks of C-4 Tolbert provided to the sides of each container with the convenient adhesive tape on the outside of the clay like block. He chose strategic points on the inner and outer perimeter of the containers and inserted a detonator into the center of each block. If everything went according to plan, the initial blasts would vaporize both the containers and the weapons in them. The secondary wave of energy from the return of expelled gasses might be enough to destroy the entire building. Trent only had eight blocks to put in place. He couldn't have been in the warehouse for more than five minutes.

His only warning of disaster came from the breeze. Trent felt it on his back as he placed the second charge. He crouched at the base of the container with his back to the door of the warehouse, the door he avoided for his own entry. He didn't hear the opening of a lock. The guards must have left the door open. He didn't hear rusted hinges or the scrape of the door against the dirt and gravel road. Maybe the boys greased the door so the commanders wouldn't hear them sneak inside. Trent would never know. He didn't see the door opening and he didn't hear it, but he felt a breeze where no breeze should be. His awareness saved his life.

Trent glanced over his shoulder and came face to face with his fears. A boy, no more than thirteen stepped through the doorway and saw Trent holding the C4 in his hands and the penlight in his teeth. Trent didn't have the time or the avenue to duck into the shadows. For a fleeting moment that lasted a lifetime, a black boy and a black man stared at each other across a distance of twenty feet separating them by hundreds of violent years.

What did the boy see in those last moments? Did Trent appear to be a black demon with a glowing red face coiled on the ground like a poisonous snake? What did the child want to do? Did he decide to shoot Trent with the rifle in his hands, scream for help, run away in fear or stand frozen in shock? Trent would never know. The instinct of sudden violence moved Trent's body with a fluid speed that cut off all decisions, questions and hesitation.

The boy's eyes ballooned into bright orbs of terror when Trent spun on his heels and dropped the C4. His mouth formed a trembling silent scream when Trent cleared his SIG from his side and raised it into two steady hands. The boy's body shook with desperate energy when Trent lined up his sights and squeezed the trigger with smooth, even pressure. The boy hit the ground in a tragic heap as the suppressed echo reverberated through Trent's ear and the rest of the darkened warehouse.

Trent didn't look down at the corpse when he crossed the room and closed the warehouse door. He didn't think about the child he just killed as he set the remaining charges around the shipping containers. He didn't wonder about the boy's parents when he searched the dirt to find the spent casing. He didn't see himself as a baby killer when he slipped out of the warehouse and through the camp to reach the banks of the Lualaba. He didn't imagine the little frail body blown into oblivion when he detonated the charges and slid into the dark water. Swimming beneath the churning, mud saturated water forced him to focus on his stride and not what he'd just done. But when he reached the north bank, at a bend in the river obscuring him from the camp, everything came flooding back.

Trent pulled himself out of the river with quivering hands that had nothing to do with the cold water. Tears poured from his eyes and disappeared into the mud as he sat on the river bank. His mind assaulted him with the image of the boy's bright eyes and silent scream until Trent vomited with choked cries. Trent sat there on the banks of the Lualaba River held down by the weight of his guilt.

But even in his mourning, his mind evaluated his situation. He wasn't worried about who might see him now. He could still hear secondary blasts and imagined the rebels in complete chaos. The first explosion hit while most of them slept. They would wake confused, disoriented, and disorganized. They wouldn't know if the explosion came from an accident or an attack. They wouldn't know if the detonation was the only blast or the first of many. Even if the commanders had the training to respond tactically, the child soldiers might snap under the sudden pressure, considering the strain they lived under from day to day. Some of them might run away, either in blind terror or as an opportunistic attempt at freedom. It would be hours and maybe even days before the CNDP realized what happened. Trent didn't concern himself with the rebels anymore.

His mind shifted to his next target. Trent had to deliver a message before he left the Congo. The op required tactical thinking, even if it was driven by revenge.
Chapter Six: Tolbert's Nightmare

Trent tracked Tolbert to the same dive bar they used for their last briefing. This time, Tolbert drank his Primus beer with two Chinese men. Trent decided they were representatives of the client who ordered the weapons destroyed. The three men sat closer to the bar drinking large amounts of beer, laughing hard and celebrating the success of Trent's mission. They were so blasted, they didn't even notice him sitting by the bar.

Trent sat with his back to his target, watching Tolbert's movements in the smudged mirror behind the bar. The space held a louder crowd tonight, even though there couldn't have been more than eight men in the room. Tonight's soccer game inspired more emotion, more yelling and more cover for Trent. Tolbert never looked in his direction. Maybe Tolbert was right. Maybe Trent could blend in with the local Bantu after all. Trent nursed his bottle of beer, waiting for the right moment to take advantage of Tolbert's ignorance.

Trent saw his opening when Tolbert started to peel the label off his beer bottle. Trent abandoned his bottle and walked towards the bathroom in the back of the bar. He made his steps slow and awkward, with a slight stumble in his stride to project the image of a harmless drunk. He kept his head turned away from Tolbert as he passed the three men. None of them seemed to notice him. Trent stepped into the bathroom with a lurch and prepared for the arrival of his prey.

The bar bathroom reeked of spilt beer and years of poor aim by its patrons. Three urinals lined one wall and two stalls stood on the other. A large window on the opposite wall had an opaque glass but a standard window lock. Trent stood alone in the small room. He unlocked the window, stepped into a stall and waited for Tolbert's inevitable bathroom break.

Trent knew the alley outside the window led both east and west to the back streets of Kolwezi. If he couldn't get out the front door, the window would serve as a viable secondary escape. He knew Tolbert's fondness for beer would bring him into the bathroom sooner or later. He recognized Tolbert's ritualistic peeling of the beer label as a precursor to a visit to the men's room. He knew the man's lack of security awareness made him vulnerable to an attack. Trent didn't know if another man would come into the bathroom with Tolbert. If they did, Trent would have to wait for another shot. But Trent stood crouched on the seat of the toilet. His Zero Tolerance drawn in one hand and the empty 9mm casing in the other, ready for the chance to swoop down on his target.

Tolbert came in alone. Trent heard his heavy breathing and then the sound of an opening zipper. The time to strike had come. He waited to hear the rude splash rain down on the porcelain before opening the stall door and stepping behind Norman Tolbert.

It took less than a second to alter Tolbert's reality. Trent kicked him in the back of his knee, twisted his shoulders and spun his victim into the open stall. Tolbert's piss continued to flow, sprinkling the walls and floor in a circular pattern around the men and onto his own pants. Their dance ended with Tolbert on his knees in front of the toilet. The door to the stall rattled closed behind them. Trent pressed his knife against Tolbert's jugular and whispered into his ear.

"Do you give a fuck now?"

"What the fuck--"

"Shut up unless you want to die face down in this toilet." Trent felt quivering fear shake Tolbert's body. He recognized Trent's voice. His mind began to grasp the gravity of his situation.

"No! Don't--"

"I said shut the fuck up!" Trent let the blade nick Tolbert's skin and his victim complied. His body shook with even more force and Trent could see tears forming in the corner of his eyes. The musty stench of shit overpowered the native funk of the stall as Tolbert lost control of his bowels. Trent fed on his fear.

"I didn't come here to listen to your bullshit. I just came to give you my mission report because I'm a professional. Do you want to hear it or do you still not give a fuck?"

Tolbert nodded with a wild look in his eyes. Maybe he hoped to buy himself some time for another person to come into the bathroom and save him. Maybe he just wanted another few minutes to live. Either way, he stayed quiet. So Trent kept talking.

"I've got good news and bad news. The good news is I neutralized the target. The bad news is I had to shoot a little boy to complete your mission."

"Wait. That's not my--"

"Shut up." The knife cut in deeper with Trent's words. "Not your fault? It was your mission, your bad intel, and your threats put me in that position. It might not be your fault, but now it's your fucking problem because I'm done with you and your chicken shit outfit."

Trent tossed the spent casing from the baby killing bullet into the toilet. Tolbert watched the brass sink into the grey water with wide eyes. Trent watched the ugly reminder too. "Now you are on my shit list. If you don't want to wind up like that casing, you'll stay away from me. If I see you again, you die. If I hear your name connected to anything I don't like, you die. If I even think my name gets out because of you or if anyone comes after me because of you, you die. Are we clear, Tolbert?"

Tolbert couldn't nod fast enough. "Anything you want. Just let me live. Please."

"Don't worry. I want you to live. I want your client to see you with tears on your face and shit in your pants. I want you to stay awake at night imagining me standing in your shadow. I want you to think about what happens in the real world when you decide to kill people over a few beers. You remember this conversation. We won't be speaking again."

Trent pulled the knife away and slammed the butt down on the side of Tolbert's neck. His former boss went limp and fell face first into the toilet. Trent flushed Tolbert's head. The water belched out onto the floor and turned Tolbert's frightened scream into comical blubbering.

Tolbert might have emerged from the stall in a full blown rage. Maybe he called for help. Maybe he just curled up on the piss wet floor of the bathroom stall in a fetal position, frozen in shock from his near death experience. Trent didn't know how Tolbert reacted. He walked out of the bathroom, out of the bar and into the dark streets of Kolwezi without being challenged or even noticed. And Trent never saw Norman Tolbert again.

Interlude: Rouge Agents

Summer 2014

"So not only will Trent disobey direct orders, he's also capable of turning on his superiors at any moment?"

Rose pushed herself away from the table and stomped towards the bar. Her disapproval of Baker's story bordered on disgust. Nikki saw how the administrator might identify with Tolbert. Like him, she had no experience in the field. She had the same disregard for security protocols and the same disdain for shooters like Trent and Chu. It didn't take a big leap in imagination for Rose to see herself in Tolbert's position. Living in a world of sudden violence had to be terrifying for her. Turning terror into anger served as a logical defense mechanism. Nikki understood Rose's reaction, even if she didn't share it.

Baker understood Rose too, but he appeared to have much less sympathy for her. "We have to remember that our operators are people first, Ms. Mendoza. They're not just assets for our manipulation. They have their own values, their own morals--"

"And their own hit squads trying to kill them." Rose jabbed the ice pick into the bucket with angry thrusts that served more as an outlet for her stress than a way to get more ice. "I don't see how we can conduct business with someone who has a bounty on their head. If Tolbert sends men after him--"

"Tolbert followed Trent's instructions as far as I can tell." Baker raised his glass to his nose to breathe in the aroma of his whiskey. "Trent's name never came up on any publicized rendition team lists, and neither Trident. No other outfit I know of is looking for Trent based on the Congo situation. Staying away from Trent was probably the best decision Tolbert ever made."

"And what if he changes his mind?"

"Dead men can't change their minds, so that's not really a problem anymore, is it?" Baker took a long sip and let his words hang in the air.

"So Trent killed him after all?" Ria put her feet up on the table with a laugh. Nikki noticed the tight, supple muscles flexing under her dark skin and the intricate black tattoos swirling down the back of her thigh.

"Nope," Baker set down the empty glass. "Norman Tolbert died near Kennedy Airport during a job Chu did for me."

Nikki shook her head in confusion. "Why did you send Chu to kill Tolbert?"

Baker threw his head back and laughed. "I didn't. Tolbert was a victim of his own stubborn superiority complex. Chu was working an executive protection op and had to clean up Tolbert's mess."

Nikki wondered how Baker could be so jolly discussing another man's murder, but she didn't want to pursue the subject. "Do you always use Chu as a bodyguard?"

"No. Chu has a more versatile skill set. He can do surveillance, threat analysis and hostage rescue in addition to the straight forward protection work."

"Does he ignore your orders too?" Rose pushed herself back into her chair an angry flourish. Nikki wondered why she stayed in a conversation she clearly hated.

Baker laughed again, this time with more irony. "Let's just say Chu has an inventive way of completing his missions."

Book Three: Domestic Disturbance

## Chapter One: Dangerous Opportunity

Fall 2011

Erich Maas existed within a strict schedule of self-destruction.

It began every day with an awkward and perfunctory kiss on the cheek of his reluctant wife. Next, he shambled through the streets of Park Slope, fighting against the waves of children racing to school and the hipsters making their daily pilgrimage into Manhattan. Maas didn't ride the train. He lingered at the independent coffee shop long enough to inspire subconscious nervousness in the nannies and stay at home parents. They clutched their children a little tighter until he left. Maas never did or said anything in public to threaten anyone, but his particular brand of disheveled didn't sit well, even in the oasis of calculated casual Brooklyn. They could sense a problem with Maas, even if he didn't show any visible signs.

Maas spent his afternoons in regimented wandering. He visited the same little bookstore every day, but never bought anything. He starred in the windows of the high end real estate agencies, scanning all the posted listings but never going in the office. He roamed up and down the tree lined avenues with his hands in his pockets and his head low. He didn't make eye contact with anyone and he didn't go anywhere. He just kept walking in circles until he could claim his favorite seat at the local dive bar.

His choice of seating location didn't have any tactical value. Maas sat with his back to the front door, and too far away from the back door to use it as a viable secondary escape. Maas didn't appear to know anything about personal security and if he did, he didn't care. His version of escape came in a bottle. He drank a dark brown doppelbock called Paulaner Salvator. The beer made the whole room smell like chocolate malt when Maas drank by himself. He often got to the bar first. By the time the after work crowd arrived, three or four glasses stood empty on his table, circling him like satellites. Maas wouldn't leave the bar until he had at least six beers and his consumption often ran into the double digits. Then he would stumble back home in the dark to square off with Maria Maas.

Hamilton Chu knew everything about Maas's pattern and preferences because he'd followed the stupid bastard every day for three weeks. Chu shadowed Maas because the drunk once designed satellite technology. For a brief moment, Erich Maas defined satellite technology. He dropped out of Cornell as the next big thing ten years ago. Wired magazine did a story on him soon after, proclaiming him a revolutionary who would impact technology as much as, if not more than, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs. But his first major independent project failed in spectacular fashion. Then, an attempted buyout of a competitor crippled the financial health of his company. The final blow came when the board of directors of the company he created bought him out and sent him packing. Confidential sources said Erich Maas had developed an explosive breakthrough in long range access technology, but right now he couldn't get a job installing cable boxes. He represented a dangerous opportunity.

A man in Maas's situation created a unique target in the world of industrial espionage. While the tech industries of the West saw him as a liability, countries with substandard satellite technology could gain a tremendous advantage with Maas's designs. China stood to gain the most if they got their hands on Maas's work. But high level satellite technology fell under several national security regulations. The NSA monitored all communications between foreign nationals and experts at this level. Maas couldn't work for, or even have contact with, members of foreign governments without explicit clearance from Homeland Security and Disney would start selling porn before Maas got permission to work with Beijing. If the Chinese wanted him, they had to recruit him in secret.

So Chu watched and waited for any sign of Chinese operatives trying to make contact with or pass messages to Erich Maas. When he first got the assignment, Chu assumed Maas went through his daily ritual as part of his tradecraft. The daily strolls could be part of a complex pattern designed to avoid or expose surveillance. The visits to the coffee shop offered a chance for covert conversation. The wandering in the streets gave Maas the chance to hide and pick up packages at designated dead drops. Even the pilgrimages to the bar might just be a cover for his Chinese handler to meet Maas and exchange information. Chu looked for any sign of Maas's connection to foreign agents. He didn't find any evidence of espionage, but what he did find out about Maas was worse than any corporate spying.

Maas lurched towards the bar to pay his tab. Chu used the ritual to cover his exit. Maas always drank first and paid later because he never knew how much he might consume. Chu always paid for his drinks up front so he could leave before Maas and not attract attention. The target didn't react to the pattern. He didn't seem to notice Chu going to the same bar two or three times a week. Maybe the fact that Chu altered his appearance and timing with each visit kept Maas from seeing the pattern. Maybe Maas was too lost in his depression to notice the world around him. It could have been a bit of both, but Chu didn't take any chances. He slipped away from the crowd inside the bar, weaved through the hipsters smoking by the front door and walked in the direction of Maas's brownstone.

Chu passed Stanley Kean at the corner near the bar. The tall, lanky man waited at the bus stop, reading a worn out copy of the Communist Manifesto. Kean didn't look at Chu. Chu didn't acknowledge Kean. When the bus arrived, Kean put away his book and reached for his wallet. Chu crossed the street. Maas left the bar and trudged in the direction of his home. In the mirror of a closed artisanal bakery, Chu saw Kean patting his body as if he'd misplaced his wallet. Kean didn't look at Maas. Maas passed Kean without any sign of recognition. The bus doors closed, leaving Kean on the corner behind Maas. By the time the target crossed the street, Kean had fallen in behind him, using a trio of giggling girls as a partial buffer between himself and Maas. Chu went down a different street, comfortable they'd completed the surveillance transfer unnoticed.

Chu took an apparently random path back to their rented apartment. Every block he walked and turn he took gave him an opportunity to detect or evade anyone following him. Chu hadn't seen any signs of a counter surveillance team on Maas, but good teams avoided notice until they decided to strike. Chu threaded his way through Park Slope alone, hoping tonight would be different than all the other nights.

Their apartment didn't have a direct line of sight to Maas's brownstone, but the two spaces were only separated by a short block of no more than two hundred feet. Chu opened the front door and listened. A single set of footsteps sped up the stairs. Chu guessed Kean arrived before him. Chu stopped at the mailbox and pretended to check it. RSVP Security took care of all the mail and bills for the space through a fictitious talent agency, so he knew the box would be empty. But the charade gave him cover to ambush anyone who might have followed them. As Chu stood in the lobby, no one else entered the building. So Chu closed the mailbox and made his way upstairs without enthusiasm. He knew the next item on Erich Maas's schedule. No matter how many times he wished it might be different, the days always ended with Erich and Maria together.

## Chapter Two: The Same Team

"He's at it again."

Kean stood in the kitchen of the exposed brick apartment and poured Cap'n Crunch into a red Solo cup. He captured the image of a post frat bachelor and most of the apartment maintained a similar illusion. Bottles of Heineken and Cuervo competed with boxes of Oreos and bags of Doritos for shelf space in the kitchen. A huge flat screen TV dominated the living room, surrounded by mismatched pieces of black furniture. A PS4 sat in the middle of the room with its accessories strewn across the floor. Only the master bedroom failed to fit the image of their cover. Chu forced himself into the makeshift surveillance room without a word to Kean.

Several flat-screen computer monitors filled the otherwise dark room with a cold white glow. Each screen revealed a room or hallway inside Maas's brownstone. The squat, flabby shape of Ganesh Privti perched in the center of the video hub. His wide frame blocked out much of the light from his machines. He took off his bulky headphones when Chu came up beside him, but he never looked away from his screens.

"The subject is conforming to standard behavior patterns. There isn't anything substantial to report."

Chu didn't respond to the unspoken invitation to go away. He leaned over Privti's shoulder, trying to find Maas on one of the screens. He found Erich and Maria in the basement. The pinhole camera over their heads gave Chu and Privti a clear view of the action.

"You call that normal, Neshi?"

Maas grabbed a fist full of his wife's hair in one hand and her throat in the other. He had her bent backwards over the washing machine, barking angry words Chu couldn't hear through Privti's headphones. Maria held up her hands in surrender, trying to beg her way out of the argument. Chu didn't need to hear the audio. He could imagine what she said. The words were part of his identity.

Privti's words were just as familiar. "Please stop calling me pet names, Hamilton. I am not your pet. I am not comfortable with your pet names."

Maas balled up his fist and punched Maria in the stomach. The small woman doubled over in pain and collapsed onto the concrete floor.

"Do you think she's comfortable? You think this is standard behavior for her?"

"We know it is." Kean had to duck to get through the bedroom doorway, but once he reached Chu and Privti, he stood up to his full height and pour cereal into his mouth from the cup. "He pulls the same shit every night. She puts up with it every night. I'm amazed she's still alive."

Maria curled her body into a fetal position and covered her head with her hands. Maas stood over her, kicking her in the ribs and stomping on her head with his tattered shoe.

"You'd be surprised what some women are forced to put up with." Chu's hands balled up into fists on the table. He didn't look away from the abuse, but his mind flashed back to beatings in his memory.

Privti leaned away from Chu in a subconscious attempt to put space between them. "This is standard behavior for the target and the wife is not forced to put up with anything. She is an American woman. She can leave. She can report him. She is not a helpless victim."

Maas had his shoe off now. He raised it high over his head and beat Maria's back and legs. The battered wife flinched and writhed with each blow. Chu couldn't hear the whimpers, but he knew the sound.

"She's a naturalized citizen, Neshi. Her English is limited. Her friends and family are thousands of miles away. She has no independent source of income. It took you twice as long to set up the surveillance because she's not allowed to leave the house. So where exactly is she supposed to go, how is she going to get there and who's going to help her once she's gone?"

"The wife is not our concern. Our job is maintaining surveillance on the target until he is contacted by the opposition." Ganesh turned away from Chu and put his headphones back on to end the conversation. "And do not call me pet names. I am not your pet." He pretended to resume his observation of Maas. Chu continued to stare at the side of Ganesh's head, making no effort to give the man space or end the discussion.

Kean pulled the cup away from his face, searching for a way to ease the tension. "I hope he doesn't kill her before Beijing shows up. If he does, he'll be too hot to get recruited."

At last, Maas gave up on Maria. He lumbered back up the stairs, leaving her broken body on the unfinished basement floor. Liquor and fatigue forced him to navigate the stairs on his hands and knees, giving him the look of a drunken grizzly bear. Maria's face remained hidden under her bruised arms and ravaged hair. Drops of blood began to pool on the floor beneath her head. Chu felt the echoes of her pain with every convulsive spasm of her body.

"Hope is not a plan Stanley. Mrs. Maas might not last much longer. If we're going to preserve this operation, we need to---"

"We don't need to do anything." Ganesh snapped off the headphones and jumped out of his seat as if he'd been shocked. "You have no authority to intervene. We have clear rules of engagement. You cannot expose this operation to the police because you are too weak to do your job."

"You think I'm weak because I don't want to watch a man beat on his wife every night?" Chu eased the chair out of his way to give himself a clear shot at Privti. The larger man thrust his finger out in anger, but backed away with a trembling lip.

"It is weak to not do your job. It is weak to not mind your own business. You have no right to interfere with a man and his wife. It is not your place."

Chu took a slow step towards Privti. He held his hands up to signal peace, but the tone in his voice had a predatory edge. "It's not my business, Neshi?"

Kean stepped between Chu and Privti, holding up his own hands with a more sincere display of pacification. "Cut it out, Smoke. We're on the same team. Let's just take it up with Ghost in the morning."

"I am not like him! I am not on his team! I do not want his pet names!"

Chu stopped his advance and dropped his hands, but his voice became darker, more menacing. "Is it none of my business because of the job, or is it because I don't have a wife?"

"Leave it alone, Smoke--"

"Spit it out, Neshi. Do you think I want to stop Maas because I'm a fag, or is it because you just like to watch women get beat up?"

"Do not call me pet names!"

"Do you hate it when I call you Neshi because you think I'm flirting with you? Huh? Are you afraid I'm going to try and fuck you in the middle of the night?"

"Leave me alone! I'm not on your team!"

"Enough, Chu!" Kean raised his voice without conviction.

Chu stood close enough to crack the taller man's sternum with his knee, but he didn't. He had the range to reach out and crush Privti's trachea in a single step. He never made an aggressive move toward them. But he thought about it and they knew it. Chu let the knowledge sit with them when he turned to leave the room with one more glance at Maria Maas's body on the cold stone floor.

"This isn't going to end well, gentlemen." Chu left the surveillance room, leaving the men to wonder what he meant.

## Chapter Three: You're Not Batman

"Smoke, can you explain to me why my field technician is threatening to sue us for sexual harassment?"

Baker didn't sound pleased, although his voice retained its laid back, harmonious tone.

Chu glanced over his shoulder as he walked down Prospect Park West. He didn't plan on using any names or saying anything out loud to compromise the mission, but he checked for eavesdroppers out of habit. "Your tech is a backwards homophobe who sees everything as a threat to his manhood."

"That may be true, but it doesn't explain why he's so upset."

"He knows how to get upset? That's funny. He doesn't seem too upset watching the nightly video."

"He's focused on the job, and he's coming at this from a different cultural perspective--"

Chu stopped in his tracks and threw his back against the low stone wall of the park. "Fuck his perspective. Have you seen the video?"

"I've seen the highlights and I've read your reports. I know how bad it is and how hard it is for you to watch."

Chu fought to control his breathing. "This isn't about me, Ghost. What happens to the mission when he goes too far? What happens to her? We can't just sit and watch while he just does whatever he wants to her."

Baker breathed an exasperated sigh. "OK. Let's look at the options. If you get in the middle of it to protect her, the fish won't bite and the whole trip is a waste of time."

"What about an anonymous threat?"

"To tip him off to the fact someone is watching him? Don't you think he might mention your threat to the fish once they make contact?"

"We don't know--"

"He can't know you're there, Smoke. He can't get picked up by LE. You can't remove her from the fish tank and you can't let her know you're there either. If there is any deviation from his standard routine, if he gets spooked about anything, the fish will swim away. A lot of people are counting on this meal. You just need to hang on."

Chu pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose to release the painful pressure in his head. "You're not hearing me. I'm not the one who needs to hang on. I'm not in the tank with him. We don't know the timetable for contact. We don't know if she can last long enough for the fish to bite. So what happens when he goes too far and she doesn't get up? The fish aren't going to be able to grab the bait if LE locks him away."

"I hear you and I agree with you. But I think you're underestimating her. She lived in the tank before we got here. She's been married to him for years and she lived with him before the marriage. This isn't a new situation. She coped with it before us. She can--"

"So we're going to punish her for being tough enough to last as long as she has? What kind of fucked up shop are we running?" Chu heard his voice rising and felt the strain in his lungs as his chest heaved. He needed something to do, someone to hit to release this tension.

Baker didn't answer right away. Chu imagined him behind his desk absorbing the frustration. "We're in a business that doesn't have the luxury of right or wrong choices, Smoke. In times like this, we have to go with the best worst option. We can't sacrifice thousands of lives to try and save one. That means she has to stay put and so do you. You do anything else and the whole trip goes sideways."

Chu kicked back at the wall with the heel of his shoe. "I can't accept that."

"I know you don't accept it. I know you better than that. I'm just asking you to do it and not take your frustrations out on my tech."

"His 'cultural perspective' is not my problem." Chu's mind flashed back to beatings in his past.

"You're right. Your problem is you're trying to be Batman."

"What? Listen, I don't want to hear any of your stupid analogies right now--"

"OK, but this isn't really about a backwards colleague, a brutal man or an abused woman. All this is about you."

"Are you saying I don't give a fuck about her at all?" Chu heard the echoes of her crying floating in the park breeze.

"No. It's just the opposite. You need to save her because you're trying to change the past. You want to get back what was taken from you. But you can't fix what happened, Smoke. You couldn't stop the abuse before and you can't stop it now."

Chu forced a laugh. "You're not doing too well as an insightful comic geek. Batman lost his parents to a random mugger. Both my parents are still alive."

Baker didn't echo Chu's hollow humor. "Maybe, but a stranger took away Bruce Wayne's family. That might be easier than what you went through."

Chu felt the convulsive spasms of pain in her broken body. "Look, I'm gonna go. I'll smooth things out with your tech, but I need to make some other calls."

Chu heard the sympathy in Baker's sigh just before he hung up. "Understood. Say hello to your mom for me."

## Chapter Four: This Woman's Work

In spite of her condition, Sunny Chu answered the phone with an enthusiasm worthy of her name.

"Hello beautiful boy. Why are you wasting time calling an old woman like me?"

"I just wanted to hear your voice, pretty lady. How are you holding up?"

"I'm perfectly fine my dear, but you don't need to worry about that. I know you're probably at work. You shouldn't be calling me when you're on a secret mission. Now don't go and get yourself in trouble with Mr. Baker. You can't take advantage of him just because he's your friend."

"It's fine, Ma. He wants me to stay in touch with my mother."

"He's such a nice man. Do you know he sent me flowers on my birthday? I can't believe he remembered my favorite kind. You always send roses, but he sent me the most beautiful cushion chrysanthemums with a personal card in perfect calligraphy. He's so nice. How is Mr. Baker these days? Are you ever going to get together with him?"

"Hey! I thought you liked roses." Chu smiled to himself. His mother's infectious buoyancy lifted his spirits when no one else could. "Baker is fine, ma. And he has a wife, remember? Besides, I didn't call to talk about him. I called to check up on you. Are you ok?"

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine. I spend most of my time rolling around the clinic. You know there's so much to do these days. So many people need help, but it gives me something to do to keep my old hands busy."

"I'm glad you're staying out of trouble, but you've always been helping people. Who's there to help you?"

"I don't need any help. I've got two good hands and pretty good eyes. I still have my hair and almost all my teeth. Why would I need anyone to help me? A lot of people my age can't even chew their own food."

Chu laughed with her, but his response held more irony. "If you say so..."

"I do say so, but you don't believe me. What's wrong, my beautiful boy? What are you so worried about?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to talk to you."

"I like that very much. I appreciate the company."

"So where's Dad? What's he been up to?"

"You know your father is down at the Blue Crane. He gets so worked up over his games. I hate to think about what the stress is doing to his heart. It's just not good for him."

"How good is it for you?"

"I'm perfectly fine, my dear. Your father wins quite often. He's very good."

"But what happens when he loses?"

The creak of slow spinning wheels harmonized with Sunny Chu's sigh of resignation. "He has always been very passionate about his interests, my dear."

Chu's eyes burned. "That's not passion, Ma. It's anger, and whatever it is doesn't give him the right to take it out on you."

"It's fine, baby. It's fine. I spend my days at the clinic. He spends his nights at the Crane. I hardly get to see him much at all these days, except for church on Sunday..."

"So you spend your life running from your husband? You hide from him so he can't hurt you?"

"No, no it's not like that at all." Sunny spoke with the smooth soothing tones of a mother trying to protect her son from the evils of the world. "I'm not afraid of your father. I'm not afraid of anyone. I know I have a strong son who looks after me."

"But I'm not there for you, and I wasn't there when you really needed me."

"Beautiful boy, you have been running to my rescue from the day you started to walk. I still have your protection bottle. You saved me more times than you can ever know. And now, you're keeping people safe all around the world. You make me very proud."

"I'm sorry, Ma---"

"It's perfectly fine, baby. You can't be everywhere at once. You have to protect the people who need you most. You're doing just fine."

"Do you need me to be there for you more?"

"I'm an old woman. You shouldn't waste your time with me."

"Does he still hit you?"

"I told you I hardly see him."

"Because he still hits you, even with all he's done to you already?"

Sunny Chu didn't have a cheerful response. She didn't have any response at all. The wheels stopped rolling and the silence told Chu all he needed to know.

"I'm coming to get you. I'm coming over right now."

"No baby. You need to work. You have a life to live. You can't sit around to take care of me."

"You can stay at my place. You'll be safe there."

"Your apartment is too small and it doesn't have a ramp. I can't get into your place and I couldn't move around in there anyway."

"I'll get a new place, something bigger and--"

"Beautiful boy, I need to be here. This is my home. I have a life. You have a life. I know you are there for me, but I don't want you to change your life for me."

"Then I'm going to the Crane. I'll make sure he never touches you again. I \--"

"You will do no such thing, Hamilton Chu. You promised to never try that again. He is your father. I'm not asking you to love him, but you have to respect him. If you can't do it for him, then please try to do it for me."

"Respect him? Why? Where was his respect for me? Where's his respect for you?"

"We don't respect him for who he is, my dear. We respect him for what he has given us."

"What has he ever given us?"

"He gave me you." The words spilled out without any hesitation. "Without Wei Chu, I could have never known Hamilton Chu and I wouldn't give you up for anything. You are my perfect prize."

Sunny's words brought tears to Hamilton's eyes. He didn't try to talk. He just admired his mother's strength. She tried to whisper soft words into his ear to comfort him, but the more she spoke, the more he cried.

"Your father will be your father as long as he can still walk and talk, baby. It's who he was, who he is and who he's going to be. You can't live in anger because of him. That's worse than anything anyone can do to you. Live your life the best you can and nothing else will matter. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Ma."

"That's my special boy. Now go to sleep. You probably have to wake up early to go on a secret mission. I'll talk to you later."

"Ok. I love you."

"I know you do baby and I love you too. Everything will be fine. Just remember what I said."

Hamilton Chu didn't stop crying when he hung up the phone. He sat in the dark as confused and helpless as a small child.

## Chapter Five: The War of Chu

Hamilton Chu didn't remember his first experience fighting Wei Chu. The encounter couldn't really be called a fight. Wei was a thirty year old enraged dock worker. Hamilton couldn't have been more than four. But the difference in age didn't prevent the youngest Chu from throwing a bottle of formula at the back of his father's head.

Hamilton had no concept of age or fighting when he attacked. He didn't understand family social constraints or the financial pressures of immigrants. He only understood pleasure and pain. So when Dad threw Ma against the wall of their little apartment, Hamilton waddled over on pudgy little legs and hurled his afternoon bottle in retaliation.

He missed.

Wei Chu cursed and swatted his son with a backhand, dropping him to the floor. Sunny Chu fell on her son without hesitation, shielding his body with her own. On that day, mother and son became inseparable.

Sunny taught Hamilton to ride a bicycle when his father spent his time at the gambling hall. Hamilton wiped the blood away when Sunny's husband came home and smacked her in the mouth. As he got older, Hamilton stood up to his father when he got drunk and tried to rape Sunny. Sunny begged her husband for peace when he beat Hamilton and tried to throw him out into the street. Wei Chu held his family together by being a brutal monster. Sunny and Hamilton clung to each other in codependent survival and support.

So Hamilton had no intention of going off to college after high school. He couldn't leave his mother alone. When she insisted he apply to the best schools around the country, he resisted. He had the size and the strength to keep Wei Chu in check now. The beatings had dissolved into hollow drunken tirades. The tiger lost his claws. The young man planned to maintain the uneasy peace. He would live at home to watch over his mother and remain a constant threat to his father.

But Sunny Chu wouldn't hear of it. She had dreams of her son becoming a lawyer, then a politician and then who knew how far he could go? She wanted him to help other people and have a life beyond what they called the Little War of Chu. Hamilton told his mother he could do all those things and still live at home. Her response ended the conversation.

"How are you going to go out and find yourself a nice boy if you waste all your free time with me?"

Hamilton never came out to his mother. He never came out to anyone. He wasn't willing to put another burden on her. He didn't want her to have to choose between her son and her church. He didn't want her to feel guilty or ashamed of her son, especially in the face of her husband's constant cruelty. He didn't want her to feel alone if she decided to reject him. He didn't want to be alone, either, so he kept his sexuality to himself. But Sunny Chu knew her son, and she loved him more than the church or her husband or her own safety.

The new dimension to their relationship made it even harder for Hamilton to leave, but Sunny insisted on his happiness through tear soaked eyes. Hamilton applied to the best schools and got himself a scholarship. He left for orientation on a Saturday in early fall, with a promise to see his mother again as soon as he could.

Hamilton came back to Queens the following Tuesday to visit his mother in the hospital.

Wei Chu told the paramedics Sunny fell down the stairs. He told the doctors she hit her head during the fall. He told the police they had no history of domestic disturbance. Wei Chu didn't tell Hamilton anything. He wouldn't look his son in the face or even stay in the ICU when Hamilton arrived. Hamilton didn't care about his father. He just wanted his mother to wake up so he could see her again.

Sunny woke up. She blamed the slippery stairs for her fall. She chastised herself for hitting her head. She apologized to Hamilton for revealing his secret. She didn't mean to tell Wei Chu anything. She made a terrible mistake in a moment of pride and begged her son for forgiveness. Hamilton didn't care about his secret. He just wanted to be close to his mother.

So Hamilton Chu stood by her bed when the doctors explained her injury. He held her hand when they told her about the damage to her spine. He held her close when she found out she'd never walk again. Hamilton heard their words, but he didn't listen to them. He focused his attention on Wei Chu.

Hamilton knew what happened. He saw it play out in his mind. Wei picked a fight with her without realizing she felt stronger and more confident than any other time in her life. Her perfect prize had escaped the War of Chu. Sunny finally stood up to her husband. Maybe she even blurted out Hamilton's secret to punish Wei's distorted image of manhood. Whatever his mother said and however she said it, Wei Chu responded with renewed violence. All the months of uneasy peace exploded into a single act of rage. Wei Chu grabbed Sunny by the hair. He threw her down the steps. The man crippled his wife and Hamilton couldn't think about anything else.

He didn't say what he planned to do about it. He didn't talk about going home to look for the hammer in Wei Chu's tool box. He didn't explain how he planned to confront his father and break all the fingers in the hands Wei used to grab Sunny's curly hair. He didn't mention smashing his father's kneecaps as he dragged him to the staircase. He didn't say he wanted to crack the back of his father's skull opened before throwing him down the stairs. Hamilton sat next to his mother and kept it all to himself. But Sunny Chu knew her son, and she wouldn't let him go.

"Please don't hurt him. Please promise me you'll stay with your auntie while I'm here and you'll go back to school when I go home."

"You're not going back home while he's still there. But he's not going to be there by the time you get out."

"Don't hurt him. I don't want you to suffer anymore for this."

"He's going to suffer for what he did, not me. I don't care who he is. He can't do anything to me."

"If you hurt him, you won't be able to finish school."

"I don't care about school."

"I care about school and I care about you. I need you to get out of this. He has ties to the Hip Sing. If you go after him, they will come after you. They will come after me. The police will get involved. Your life will be over. Everything I did for you, and everything we did together, will be for nothing. Please don't do that to me. I need you to get out of this life. I need one of us to escape this war. School is your escape, so promise me you'll go back there soon."

Hamilton never faced his father or his brothers in the Tong. He never spoke to Wei Chu again. He went back to school after pushing his mother home in her new wheelchair. He learned how to channel his rage into skills and training he could use to protect people who couldn't protect themselves.

Hamilton sat in the dark, remembering the War of Chu and wondering if the fate of Sunny Chu would become the reality of Maria Maas. Then a flash of inspiration brought a smile to his face and movement to his body. Hamilton walked out of his apartment and into the night to give fate a little push.

## Chapter Six: Setting the Stage

Chu dissected the route between Maas's dive bar and his brownstone with the precision of a surgeon.

No one roamed the side streets of Park Slope at three a.m., so he took his time to pick the perfect spot. He needed a place he could reach before Maas paid his bill and stumbled home. It had to be on the same route Maas took every night to go back home. It had to be far enough away from the corners to be invisible to traffic from the intersections and secluded enough to give him a few seconds to work. It couldn't have security cameras mounted on the side of the house or open sight lines from any windows. Finally, he needed to find a set of descending stairs high enough and steep enough to create the effect he wanted to mimic. If he couldn't find the perfect location, he might not get another chance. The thought of Maria in his mother's wheelchair drove him forward.

His first location had the solitude and the stairwell on the side of the building, but the lens on the camera positioned over the front door could have been wide enough to capture movement on the side of the building he planned to work. Chu kept moving.

His second choice had the darkness and lacked the cameras, but he couldn't count on the lighting. The streetlight didn't pose a problem. Its position across the street deepened the shadows in his prospective kill zone. But he had to take the moon into account. It peeked in and out of the clouds now, but on a clear night it would shine down on this spot like a beacon. Chu went looking for another ambush spot.

His third choice had the cover of broad leafed trees to block out overhead light. There were no cameras close by and a set of stairs. But the stairwell seemed to shallow and loose dirt from an ongoing construction project covered the stairs. Chu couldn't afford to create footprints and destroy his illusion. He moved on, wondering if he could execute his plan in such a limited geographic space.

He found a spot a block away from Maas's home. The stairwell didn't sit right next to the sidewalk. A few feet of cobblestone path snaked from the side of the house over to the stairs and then up to the street. Chu preferred a shorter distance but he didn't have many other options. This spot had the isolation, the lack of cameras and the quality of steps he needed to make his plan work.

Chu walked in a convoluted SDR as he made his way back to the dive bar, assessing the other variables of his plan. He determined the distance and estimated the time it would take him to cover the ground between the bar and his ambush spot. He tried to recall how many dog walkers or other foot traffic he saw along Maas's route during his past three weeks of surveillance. He couldn't carry out his plan if someone happened to be walking down the street, and he couldn't predict a random passerby or a delivery bike from Seamless Web, but he remembered the walk having few other pedestrians when Maas tended to be on the street.

He checked the weather to see if conditions would be helpful or problematic. According to his app, mostly cloudy skies with a chance of rain and falling temperatures would prevail for the rest of the week. The forecast gave Chu more justification to hide his face with a scarf and made it less likely anyone would decide to take a night stroll through the neighborhood. Conditions seemed favorable for action.

Then Chu checked the duty logs to see who would be following Maas at what time periods over the next few days. Chu wouldn't be close to Maas today. He'd spent time in the bar last night and Baker wanted to be sure none of them got too close too often. Kean and Privti had shadow duty today. Chu and Privti were scheduled to work together on the day following night. The plan Chu had in mind would be easier to accomplish with Kean, but Privti would have to do. Maria might not have many more days left. Chu couldn't wait for perfect conditions.

During the SDR on his way home, Chu considered what he would do if things went wrong. He could abort if he saw someone walking on the street with Maas, but what if someone saw what he planned to do? Maybe he could pretend to be drunk himself; a guy who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Maas fought back, Chu would have to run to make sure the cops didn't get involved. If he did get arrested, he'd just pretend to be a mugger who tried to rob Maas on the way home. He'd still go to prison, but the operation wouldn't be exposed and Baker wouldn't be compromised.

Would Baker understand what Chu did and why he did it? Would Baker help get him out of jail or would he cut him off for disobeying a direct order and sabotaging a high profile op? Either way, Baker was the kind of man who would be there to support his mother. The small consolation reminded him of her.

The thought of Sunny Chu crying in her wheelchair made him hesitate. He couldn't embarrass her, or hurt her, and he didn't want to leave her alone to face Wei. But she wasn't proud of him because he allowed people to suffer. She wanted him to protect people and Maria Maas needed his help. Sunny Chu knew her son. Maybe somehow she knew the things she said would lead him to his next attack.

## Chapter Seven: Taking the Fall

Chu stood by the bar, watching for any sign of Chinese operatives trying to make contact with Erich Maas or anyone who might interfere with his plan.

The rain started the night before and continued to pound Brooklyn with a steady downpour. The bad weather kept most of the bar patrons home, so there were fewer people Chu could use to hide from Maas, but it didn't matter. The bulky hooded trench coat he wore, combined with the river of doppelbock Maas drank provided enough concealment to maintain his anonymity.

Maas lurched towards the bar to pay his tab. Chu used the ritual to cover his exit. He could feel energy building up in his limbs and hatred tensing the muscles in his face. He imagined the scene again, rehearsing the position and the movements in his mind as he had many times over the past two days. Memories of Wei Chu clouded his vision, but he shook them away, focusing on Maria instead. He made an extra effort to put on a friendly face as he weaved through the hipsters smoking under the awning and walked in the direction of Maas's brownstone.

Chu passed Privti's position under the awning of the artisanal bakery. The short bulbous man spoke Hindi into his Bluetooth at a volume loud enough to annoy anyone who might come too close. Chu didn't acknowledge Privti. Privti looked at Chu a heartbeat too long with an angry fear in his eyes. Chu crossed the street. Maas left the bar and trudged along his usual path. Privti didn't look at Maas. Maas passed Privti without noticing his existence. Privti continued to talk for twenty seconds and then began walking in the rain about a half a block from Maas. When Chu couldn't see Privti's back anymore, he ran down a different street, hoping his hostile partner hadn't detected his intentions.

Chu ran as if he were being chased. With his scarf pulled over his face and his hood up over his head, he looked like a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime. But no one stopped him. Few people walked along the sloppy tree lined streets and the few pedestrians he did pass were more worried about getting out of the rain than challenging a mysterious runner.

Chu didn't stop for red lights and he didn't look back to see who might be following him. It didn't matter now. He had to cover twice as much ground as Maas in the same amount of time for his plan to work. Any counter surveillance team would see the break in his pattern and react accordingly. The only chance he had was to act so fast no one had time to react, not Maas, not his possible backup and not Ganesh Privti.

His lungs burned from the sprint and his sneakers squished with rain water, but Chu reached the corner in time to cut off Maas. He saw his target's shadow, meandering in an off balanced and broken rhythm down the street towards him. In the rainy dark, Chu couldn't see Privti, but tradecraft dictated at least a half a block distance between the target and the shadow. Chu took a deep breath to try and calm his ragged breathing and then started walking towards Maas.

He tried to time his steps to the movement of his target, but Maas teetered every few feet, making it hard to gauge his cadence. Chu had to slow down to create the right positioning. He fought the urge to rush things before Privti turned the corner. His feet created ripples in the puddles with each step. Chu felt the ripples of violence pass from Wei to Sunny and from Erich to Maria. The rain hit the sidewalk with a fierce, relentless beat. He remembered the fierce, relentless beatings he watched during his childhood and his mission. Chu's world shifted into a slow motion reality when the men got within ten feet of each other. His heart pounded louder than the rain. With one final glance around to check for witnesses, Chu stepped into the shadows with Maas.

Chu positioned himself to put Maas between him and the stairwell. He didn't look at Maas or take his hands out of his pockets. This time, Maas froze. Maybe he heard a footstep too close in the puddle next to him. Maybe Chu's hostility and purpose sent enough negative energy between them to cut through Maas's drunken self-destructive fog and warn him of Chu's unspoken intention. Whatever Maas felt made him step away from Chu in fear.

At the same moment, Privti took a step around the corner. He didn't turn towards the men right away. Chu could still see his profile in the illuminated rain under the street light. He walked with his umbrella up and his head down, pretending to be just another commuter trying to get home. Chu knew his partner was a hundred feet away, but he'd reach their position in seconds.

Chu moved without a sound or a break in his motion. He took one step towards Maas and rammed his shoulder, elbow and hip into the other man's center line. Maas let out a rush of air as the wind left his lungs, but he didn't scream. He didn't have the time. Chu took a second step and launched his victim back, into the black hole of the wet concrete stairwell. Maas flailed for balance, but the speed of the attack, the slippery concrete and his drunken reflexes made his resistance futile. He tumbled down the stairs like a sack of garbage. Chu's third step took him down into the stairwell, right behind Maas. He crouched low, holding one hand over his victim's mouth and using his leg to keep Maas's limbs from flailing.

Privti's umbrella passed over the stairwell without stopping or slowing his pace. Chu let the shadow pass over him, imagining his partner walking along as if everything still conformed to standard behavior patterns. A new darkness bubbled up in Chu's chest. He saw himself rising out of the shadows behind Privti. He could wrap his arms around his fat neck and strangle those homophobic cultural perspectives right out of his head. He could leave the body in a dumpster, so everyone could see what a misogynistic piece of garbage he was. Chu could take his fragile manhood and his sexual harassment claims and...

Maas's mouth fought to scream under Chu's hand. He lay face down with his back heaving in pain and his limbs struggling for freedom. The movements brought Chu back from his homicidal ideation. He waited a few more seconds to get Privti away from the scene, then he forced his knee into Maas's back and pulled up on his victim's chin. Maas gasped and groaned and whimpered something like a plea, but he offered no real resistance. When his limbs stopped struggling and the lungs continued to spasm, Chu knew it was done.

Maas let out a wail more terrible than anything Sunny Chu or Maria Maas ever made. Chu ignored him, peering out of the stairwell left and right to make sure no one walked towards his position. Without another look back at Maas, Chu slipped out of the stairwell and between a pair of cars parked in the street.

Another death scream cut through the rain, prompting curious residents to turn on lights in their homes and open curtains. Chu jogged across the street under the cover of the trees putting more distance between himself and his victim.

It took two more broken and anguished cries for anyone to open their doors or venture out of their homes into the rain, but by then Chu had turned the corner and headed for the safe house, knowing tonight would be different for Erich and Maria Maas.

## Chapter Eight: Shared Secrets

"Tell me again how a routine assignment becomes a complete and total cluster fuck."

Baker stalked through the motel room like a bear forced to rise too soon from hibernation. The cane he leaned on for support didn't appear to be a restriction if he decided to attack. If anything, the steel tipped, hardwood stick had the potential to be his weapon of choice if and when the beatings started.

Sweat beaded on Privti's head, since he knew he'd be first in line for any real or metaphorical ass whipping. "Mr. Baker, I followed the subject along his normal route according to standard practices. I didn't maintain line of sight with him because I didn't want to reveal my position. Maas never deviated from his route. Everything proceeded according to..."

"Don't talk to me about standard behavior patterns, Ganesh. Talk to me about awareness. Talk to me about paying attention and having your head on straight." Baker stopped pacing to loom over Privti like an executioner. "Tell me how you walk right past your target after he fell down a flight of steps and broke his goddamn spine."

Privti couldn't make eye contact as he searched for an answer. "I didn't see him fall. I didn't hear him. He must have been unconscious when I walked past his position."

"Eyewitness reports say they heard screaming a few minutes after midnight." Kean stood in a corner to take himself out of Baker's line of fire. He looked down at his tablet as he spoke so he didn't have to make eye contact with his boss. "That matches the timestamp we have for Maas leaving the bar, and it fits with his normal time frame of walking from the bar back to his house. Everything fits his pattern of behavior."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize falling head first down a flight of steps fit in his normal pattern." Baker turned on Kean with a withering glare.

Kean tried to back pedal and then realized he had nowhere to go. "What I mean is, Maas was a heavy drinker. The streets were dark, the sidewalk was wet. We've all seen him stumble back to his place. It could have--"

"That's my fucking point." Baker turned back to Privti. "You all saw him stumble home every night, except last night, the most important night, you didn't see anything. That is simply not acceptable in a professional surveillance operation. Why am I paying a man who can't perform basic surveillance?"

"Ghost, if Maas took a tumble there isn't much Ganesh could have done about it, even if he saw what happened."

Chu spoke up because he didn't want Baker to read anything into his silence. Besides, he figured defending Privti now would be the last thing a guilty man would do. "If he stepped in and tried to help, he would have made the situation worse. Calling an ambulance for Maas might have exposed the operation. Trying to move him might have compounded the injury. If Ganesh did see Maas tumble, continuing down the street might have been the best move either way."

"That would all be true Smoke, if I only cared about what happened to Maas. But my point is bigger than that."

"What do you mean?"

"If Maas could vanish right under your fucking nose, he could have made contact with Beijing dozens of times without being detected. He could have picked up dead drops, made a brush pass or contacted the Chinese intelligence some other way. Hell, he could have been kidnapped and we would never know it." Baker paused to rest his gaze on each of the failed operators. "We're in the intelligence business, gentlemen. It's our job to collect information. If you saw him fall and didn't help him, that's fine because then we would still have the intelligence on what happened to him. Why should our clients pay for a stake out operation if they could learn the status of the target by reading the Daily News?"

Chu nodded, but didn't want to say anything else. No one said anything for a long uncomfortable moment until Baker let out an exasperated sigh.

"Fine. Let's try to pick up the pieces. What do we know about Maas's condition?"

"Not much" Kean flipped to something else in his tablet but still didn't look at Baker. "We know he had to be immobilized when EMS got to him. Preliminary news reports suggest paralysis, but that hasn't been confirmed by the hospital or Mrs. Maas."

Baker resumed his pacing, laughing to himself. "Paralyzed? That's a shame. I'm sure Mrs. Maas will be crushed when she finds out her husband can't express his particular brand of affection anymore."

Kean tried to get in on the joke. "I doubt it. This might be the best thing that could have happened to her."

"It is." All at once, Baker turned to give Chu a curious look. "We might be fucked, but Maria is very lucky things turned out the way they did, isn't she?"

Chu tried to maintain his innocent posture as Baker continued. "Smoke, where were you when Maas took his tumble?"

"I peeled off after I passed him to Ganesh. I ran my SDR and headed back to the OP."

"But you got back after Ganesh. Normally the off man gets back before the shadow. What happened?"

Chu tried not to sound like a liar. "I thought I picked up a tail, so I took a couple extra turns to make sure I was clean."

"Did anybody see you?"

"It was a false alarm. No worries."

"No worries." Baker's echo had the hollow ring of disbelief, but he dropped the subject and turned to his other witness.

"Ganesh, you said you didn't see or hear anything when Maas fell down the steps, right?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Baker. I didn't see anything."

"And because of the fall, Maas is crippled. Right, Stanley?" Chu could see the pieces falling into place for him.

"It's too early to tell, but he definitely suffered a spinal injury. There's a good chance he'll never walk again. He might even be a quadriplegic."

"Never walk again," Baker's echo prickled the skin on Chu's arms. "If he never walks again, then he can never abuse his wife again, right? That's good news for her, but bad news for us."

Baker knew. Chu could see it in his eyes. During their long friendship, they shared a lot of conversations about the War of Chu and all the suffering of his mother. Baker had intimate knowledge of Chu's skills in ambush and concealment. He counted on Chu to be his invisible weapon. Baker pieced together Chu's motivation, his opportunity and his ability. He understood what Chu did and why. But would he approve? Could he accept Chu's decision with so much money and professional reputation riding on this op? Chu decided to speak up, before Baker had to choose between their friendship and his business.

So he shrugged, trying to make his words sound spontaneous for the benefit of Kean and Privti. "Maybe not. There might be a way for us to catch the same fish with different bait."

"Really?" Baker leaned against the plywood dresser and gave Chu a conspiratorial look. "How do you suggest we salvage this snafu, Smoke?"

"We're working on the theory Beijing wants Maas's technology, right? They don't really want him. His ability or inability to walk doesn't change their goal."

Baker shook his head, but didn't interrupt. He probably knew where this was going.

"Maas is crippled, which gives China a new form of leverage. Maas's medical bills are going to skyrocket. With no job and a wife who doesn't work, he's not going to be able to cover them for long. He might try to sue the bar, but that could take years and there's no guarantee he'll win. Maas needs money. The Chinese could put themselves in a position to pay his way in exchange for the data."

"But how will they make contact with him in his condition?" Privti wanted hope, but he wasn't ready to buy in yet.

"Maria is the key" Baker said without taking his eyes off Chu. "She'll have to deal with insurance agents, doctors, lawyers and any number of people on behalf of her husband. There will be plenty of opportunities for contact and recruitment. All we have to do is keep watching her."

Chu nodded, trying not to say too much. Kean chimed in with questions of his own.

"What if she decides not to take care of him? What if she decides to dump his ass and walk away for what he did to her?"

Baker shook his head and smiled. "Maria needs money too. If she decides to sell Erich's work to finance her new life, the end result is the same. We still track the buyer, get video of the illegal transaction and the client uses the intel to blackmail Beijing. Everybody wins."

"So does this mean we should continue to monitor the house?" The prospect of keeping his job made Privti's face light up like a kid at Christmas.

"I don't know, Ganesh. I was under the impression you were uncomfortable working this assignment with Mr. Chu..."

"Mr. Baker, I would appreciate a chance to show what I can do. Mr. Chu and I understand each other. We are on the same team. I'm sure we can turn this situation into a positive result."

Baker kept shaking his head. "What about you, Stanley? You willing to stay on the op and switch targets?"

"Watching Mrs. Maas get recruited is a lot better than watching her get beat up. We'll need more people to cover all her potential contacts, but I think we should stay on as the core team to help coordinate things."

"Right." Baker turned back to Chu with a smile mixed with pride, relief and a bit of fraternal mischief. "This is your plan, Smoke. Are you willing to stay on and manage it on the ground?"

Chu shrugged as if it didn't matter to him either way. "I try to do the right thing. If you need me, I'm here."

Baker didn't bother to hide his amusement. "Are you sure? I figured you'd want to take some time to visit your mother."

Chu shrugged again, downplaying the final hint of their shared secret. "I'm sure she'll understand what I'm doing, even if I never tell her."

"We all have our secrets, Mr. Chu." Baker gave his friend a good slap on his shoulder before he left the room. "Some of us just have more secrets than others."

Interlude: Team Building

Summer 2014

"Did Chinese intelligence ever make contact with the wife?" Nikki watched Chu and Trent run a brutal cardio circuit. One man would hoist the other over his shoulder like a sack of dirty laundry and then sprint across the beach parallel to the shore line. As he kicked up sand and struggled to run with a full grown man on his back, the passenger engaged in all sorts of torment. Orders barked in harsh military tones followed brisk slaps to the kidneys or elbows to the back of the head. When the runner reached the discarded t-shirt serving as a marker, the men would switch, repeating the exercise. Just watching the two men made Nikki's thighs ache.

Rose watched with her, without sharing Nikki's respect for their exertion. "No. Maria Maas never had any contact from foreign intelligence and the entire op was scrubbed after eight more weeks of surveillance. The client wasn't happy at all."

"We can't manufacture engagement with the opposition, Ms. Mendoza." Baker took a seat next to Ria and took her free hand in his own. "We get paid to look, but we can't find what isn't there."

"Something might have been there if you didn't have a loose cannon in the operation." Rose turned away from the beach to face Baker. "If it was my op, I would have made sure Chu never worked another day for the company or anyone else. He let his personal feelings get in the way and ruined an entire operation. I would have turned him over to the police and let him take his chances with an attempted murder charge."

"I'd be careful if I were you, sister." Ria tipped the open neck of her third Corona towards Rose as she spoke, rushing to Baker's defense without any invitation or warning. "You turn on a guy like Chu and you might find yourself falling down a flight of dark steps.

Rose sucked her teeth and pulled away from the table in a pathetic attempt at defiance. "I'm not afraid of him."

Ria laughed and took a sip. "That's a big part of your problem."

Before Rose and Ria could escalate the argument, Nikki directed an unrelated question to Baker. "I haven't met Privti or Kean. Do they still work for RSVP?"

Rose cut in before Baker could respond. "Sure. Those two headed up the surveillance detail on Ria before her recruitment."

"I know all about his little surveillance detail." Ria pulled her hand away from Baker with a brisk tug, as if she just remembered a past argument. "I still don't understand why my business deserved so much attention."

"A lot of resources went into bringing you in, Ria. A lot of people had to fall in line."

Something in Rose's barb made the statement personal, but Baker started his damage control before Nikki could figure out what she meant. "You're unique, Ms. Marlen. Once I realized how well you'd fit in the team, I wanted to make sure we were in the right position to offer each other a little mutual exploitation."

"Is everything you do part of your little plan? Is this just one big op for you?"

Nikki jumped in before the lover's spat exploded into an argument or even violence. "Warren, how do Smoke and Shadow fit into the team? They're not really experts on collecting intelligence or recruiting sources."

Ria flashed Nikki a 'don't try to change the fucking subject' look, but Baker didn't pounce on the opportunity. He sat back, giving Rose a patient and dismissive glance. Only then did he address Nikki's question.

"There are times when intelligence collecting is a down and dirty job that requires an operator's skill set. You and Ria are perfect for collecting information in an urban environment, but sometimes I need boots on the ground in a place where your skill set isn't optimized."

"Like the little favor you offered when you tried to recruit me?" Ria poked Baker's arm with the mouth of her bottle. "I've been waiting to hear this story."

"There isn't much to tell. You needed something. I was in a position to provide results."

"You weren't in a position to do shit. But your boys were. Did you send them after the snakeheads?"

"What happened with the snakeheads?" Nikki preferred another story to more fighting.

Baker took another sip of whiskey and offered a sly smile as he spoke. "A situation came to my attention and I felt it was my duty as a citizen to take action..."

Book Four: A Small Favor

## Chapter One: All You Have to Do...

Spring 2013

Baker's pitch felt wrong before Chu even heard it.

The first nervous quiver in his stomach came from the neighborhood Baker selected for the meeting. Chu took the 7 train to the last stop and roamed in a random appearing pattern before making his way to the non-descript apartment building on Downing Street. He blended in with the teeming crowds of Chinese and Koreans of Flushing's bustling midday streets. He even stopped to buy some fruit from one of the hundreds of open air stalls packed onto the sidewalks.

The purchase gave him a chance to stop and check for surveillance behind him. The red plastic grocery bag gave him an extra piece of camouflage, since most shoppers in Chinatown had at least one of the little bags in their hand. Besides, Chu loved the idea of going back home with his pomegranates and enjoying the meticulous task of extracting the juicy red seeds.

Maybe the inherent promise of pleasure created a warning in Chu's mind. Baker knew how much Chu enjoyed Chinatown. He probably anticipated the positive mood this SDR could create. The choice of a beneficial meeting location could have been a coincidence, but Warren Baker didn't deal in coincidences. Was he trying to lower Chu's guard or was professional awareness turning into paranoia?

Chu found more clues at the meeting location. He avoided the front door as Baker instructed, and walked to the service entrance around the corner instead. The heavy steel door sat open. Baker had wedged a small piece of wood in the door frame to prevent it from locking. Shadows draped the inner hallway, but Chu didn't see any threats beyond the threshold. Chu knew who propped open the door when he looked at the piece of wood.

The door stop itself was ordinary enough, but the markings on the side stood out like a beacon. A few years ago, Baker, Chu, Carpenter and Trent worked for Trident Security in Iraq under the team designation Nightwatch. They used a special symbol to mark their dead drops in the field, four dots arranged in a diamond formation. Baker hadn't used the symbol since he lost his leg in Karbala and Nightwatch fell apart. Chu walked into the basement feeling more uncertainty than nostalgia.

The last warning came when Chu got closer to the laundry room where the meeting was supposed to take place. He kept his head low as he passed under the security camera, counting on his all too common Giants sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers and Yankees cap to discourage any attempts to identify him later. A crude sign taped to the wall said "Laundry Closed for Maintenance". Chu ignored the sign and focused on the laughter echoing off the thick concrete walls.

He recognized the voices of the two men in the room ahead. Chu hunted and killed terrorists with them. They shared blood, sweat and large quantities of alcohol in dark alleys and dusty battlefields. The chaos of combat, kidnappings and war taught them things about each other no one else could understand. So why did this meeting feel so wrong? Chu didn't have an answer to his question, so he entered the laundry room with his arms open and a smile on his face.

"What's up bitches?"

"Did this guy really stop to buy fruit on his way over here?" Trent stepped up to Chu and the two men fell into an embrace reserved for family and fierce friends. Chu took a moment to enjoy the reunion, but he still shot a quick glance over at Baker to try and figure out what was on his mind.

"You know," Baker said stealing a peak at his phone while the two men parted "if you guys really missed each other so much, you could have met up. You don't need me to play match maker."

Chu answered Baker's question by talking to Trent. "I thought you were still recovering from your shit show uptown. How are you feeling?"

"Better than the last time you saw me."

"The last time I saw you, your leg was broken and you were bleeding all over my car."

"So this is an improvement, right?"

Chu laughed. "Not much. You're still pretty fucking ugly."

The collective chuckle from Chu's jibe hadn't died away before he turned to Baker and got down to business. "You didn't tell me you were getting the band back together. Is Silence gonna join us too?"

"No. I've got him working on another assignment down in Miami. I need you two to help me with something else."=

"How much are you paying?" Chu tried to sound like he was joking, even though he wasn't.

"So predictable..." Baker sighed as he leaned back against the washing machines to take pressure off his leg. "I'll cover your per diem, expenses, equipment and training. You don't have to worry about any of that."

"Training? Since when do we need training?" Trent's question echoed the one forming in Chu's head and probably showed on his face.

"I know you boys think you're hot shit, but you haven't done tactical maneuvers together in more than a year. You're gonna need to shake the rust off for this one."

"What's the job?" Chu heard the doubt in his own voice. The rumblings in his stomach on the way here began again with a more insistent rhythm.

Baker shrugged his shoulders to make his words feel trivial. "It's trash removal. We've got a two week window for prep and execution."

"You've got a roster full of operators at RSVP. Why can't you send one of your teams to do it?"

"This isn't an official op. We can't have it on the books even as a discretionary line item."

Chu knew the answer before he asked the question, but he wanted all the cards out on the table. "Who's the target?"

"It's a group of snakeheads in a Chinatown tenement. There running a brothel full of sex slaves with sixteen to twenty five prisoners in total aged between twelve and twenty. All lesser attempts at removing the opposition and safely extracting the women trapped inside have failed. I need the building infiltrated, the opposition removed and extraction from the site with a minimum amount of public disturbance."

Trent's grim chuckle gave bass to the long treble of Chu's sigh. "So you need this off the books because the potential blowback could be monumental if this thing goes sideways?"

"Correct."

"There's a lot of ways something could go wrong, Ghost." Again Trent gave voice to Chu's unease. "Innocents in the line of fire, uncertainty of the terrain, the likely police response... plus we're sure to wind up on surveillance cameras and God knows how many iPhones. There's a lot of moving parts."

"Maybe," Baker had no doubt in his voice. "But you just pulled off a similar job uptown by yourself..."

"And it was a shit show. Trent got himself shot and broke his leg. The cops showed up, the whole thing turned into a blood bath and he was only after one target." Chu shook his head and tossed his fruit onto a dryer. "You're talking about going into a denser neighborhood to take out more targets and only adding one more operator. Forget a lot of moving parts. This is just fucking stupid."

Baker shook his head like a disappointed school teacher. "Gentlemen, we have snatched high value targets from nests of insurgents with an hour's prep time in broad daylight. We have taken out terrorist cells in crowded bazaars with zero civilian casualties. This job is not easy, but it is not beyond your skill set or above your pay grade. Our client needs a surgical solution to this problem and we can provide it."

Chu rubbed his eyes and continued to shake his head. "You can't just blow smoke up our ass and expect us to do something that can't be done. We can't just run in some spot and kill a group of shooters"

Baker shrugged. "It's hard to know what can't be done, isn't it. I mean, who knew you could kill two dudes in an airport parking lot and get away without anyone seeing you?"

"That was in spontaneous defense of a principal. This is premeditated murder."

"And who knew you could cripple a potential asset right under the nose of his surveillance team on a heavily populated Brooklyn street?

"That was different..."

"Really? Tell me how it was different, Smoke."

"Shit." Chu focused so much on his objections to this mission he confirmed suspicions Baker already had about his deception in the Erich Maas job. He decided to stop talking before he got himself into any more trouble.

Trent still had the ability to push back. "Is this kind of trash removal necessary? Can't we just expose them to the police or the press and let the system take care of these guys?"

Baker pursed his lips as if the question insulted him. "Unfortunately, this particular group of slavers has enough political influence to keep the police and DA off the case. Exposure in the press will only force them to change location. It won't solve the real problem. If we don't go in then nobody goes in and women will remain there to be raped until they die and replaced with other victims."

Trent gave a single dismissive nod. "I figured you'd say something like that. OK. I'm in."

Baker returned Trent's affirmation like he expected nothing less. He turned to Chu with a similar confidence in his eye. "Answer the call Smoke. Are you in or out?"

Chu thought back to the choice of neighborhood, the references to Nightwatch and the overall flow of the conversation. Baker had answers for every opposing viewpoint and strategies to cover any resistance. He knew exactly how this would go. Chu knew he could refuse, but he knew Trent would go in alone. He'd just recovered from a similar job. Chu couldn't let him go into this alone and Baker knew it. The outcome of this meeting was never in doubt. All Chu could do now was offer some token resistance to preserve the illusion of independence.

"We have to do some initial recon before we agree. We need to know what we're getting into."

Baker raised his free hand in affirmation. "I expect nothing less. We've got two weeks to make this happen. You can spend the next seventy two hours getting familiar with the target."

"And we get our per diem plus?"

"You get your per diem, plus expenses, equipment and training; all top of the line and state of the art. No worries there."

"And we'll get full RSVP support?"

"I'll provide logistics, plus necessary medical and legal, although we'll have to work under the cover of a legitimate op."

"Whatever. I just want to make sure we're covered."

"You're covered. No worries."

Trent clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Well all righty then. Let's get started..."

Baker began laying out the details of the target building. Chu tossed his pomegranates into the trash. He knew he wouldn't be relaxing at home any time soon.

## Chapter Two: Just Take a Look

Target analysis started with a thoughtful historical review and ended with Chu throwing things.

Chu and Trent spent the first couple of days reviewing Baker's files on the target group so they could understand the origins of the shetou, or snakeheads, in New York. They read about the rise of an immigrant named Sister Ping who rose from a little old lady with a knick knack store on Hester Street to the head of an international smuggling operation making nearly forty million dollars. They found out about her on again off again conflict with the upstart Ah Kay of the Fuk Ching gang and her eventual imprisonment in connection with the sinking of the Golden Venture. By the time they turned their attention to the Fuk Ching as successors to Sister Ping, they had a good grasp of the background and the players of New York's snakehead community.

The gang went underground after the media attention of Ping's trial, but they resurfaced in the new decade with a more aggressive style. They stopped wearing wild colors in their hair and adopted a clean shaven look. They continued to use claw hammers and ice picks as their weapons of choice, but they'd also dipped into the black market to acquire everything from AR15 to AK47 rifles. They still made their money smuggling Chinese and other Asians into America by boat, but they'd also branched out into money laundering, extortion and sex slavery. Baker didn't know who replaced Ah Kay as the head of the Fuk Ching, but he or she had a lot more ice in their veins than Sister Ping ever did.

Next, they turned to the physical terrain to understand how the geography could both help and hinder their efforts. The target building sat near the corner of Hester Street and Ludlow, crammed between the last of the worn down tenements and ultra-modern low rise condos trying to replace them. The main floor housed a small restaurant called the Red Crane and the basement had a storefront massage parlor with the same name. According to official records, the building and both establishments were owned by the same holding company. All the licenses and permits were in order. According to Baker, the Red Crane was the front for the slave trade. Patrons with the right connections and enough cash could skip the fried rice and foot rubs and head upstairs for more specialized services.

Trent sat at Chu's kitchen table and gestured to the map pinned to the wall with his chopsticks. "The bad news is there's a school right around the corner. The good news is we can go in at night and eliminate the risk of child casualties."

Chu checked Google maps on his laptop and tipped a Beck's to his lip with a free hand. "I'm not worried about the kids. I'm worried about the drunks. There's got to be thirty to forty bars in a six block radius. Most of them don't close until 4 a.m. There's never going to be a time when the street will be clear of foot or vehicle traffic. If this spills into the street, we're gonna have bodies everywhere. The internet will know about it five minutes later and we won't be able to hit Union Square before the whole area gets locked down."

There was no humor in Trent's laugh. "You're being optimistic, Smoke. The Fifth precinct is right there on Elizabeth and there's another police station a few blocks away on Pitt. Not to mention One Police Plaza is only about three minutes away with sirens on and no traffic. Response times are going to be near zero with helicopter and auxiliary support on both bridges. Spilling this into the street is not an option."

"So I think it's safe to say this mission qualifies as FUBAR, even on paper." Chu set down his bottle and shook his head. "I don't want to see women forced to fuck, but this mission is more likely to kill them than save them. I think we need to tell Baker this is a no-go. Give him a chance to explore other options to get this done."

Trent nodded in false agreement. "It looks FUBAR on paper, but we don't run ops on paper. We need to take a look at the Red Crane on the ground. We might be able to see some opportunities we can't see on Google Maps."

"What opportunities do you think we're going to see? The police stations aren't gonna move farther away. All the bars won't suddenly close. We know what we're going to see based on the remote analysis. Taking a walk through will only confirm what we already know."

"Maybe, but if we don't do a walkthrough, our evaluation is incomplete." Trent stood up, grabbed some ice from Chu's freezer and dropped them into his empty glass. He picked up the half empty bottle of Elijah Craig and focused on pouring as he spoke. "Baker's not going to abort a mission based on the way it looks on paper. If you want to convince him, we're going to need a complete analysis."

Chu and contemplated tossing the empty bottle at his friend. "I know what you're trying to do."

Trent held up his hands in denial, but the smile on his face gave it away. "What?"

"You don't give a damn about complete analysis and you're not interested in shutting this thing down. You just want us out in the field so you can fucking laugh at me."

Trent started laughing at him in the kitchen. "You've got to do it, Smoke. It's part of the job."

"Fuck you."

"Don't be like that. How many people get paid so much to piss in their pants?"

"Fuck you with a broken bottle." Chu tossed the bottle underhand across the kitchen towards Trent's head. The operator caught the projectile and kept on laughing.

## Chapter Three: Seeing is Believing

Homelessness gave Chu a special kind of invisibility.

People saw him sitting on the corner of Ludlow Street. The subconscious New York radar of the frat boys, party girls and wannabe hustlers steered them away from him without looking in his direction. A few of the random partiers slumming it from uptown put money in his cup, but guilt prevented them from looking into his face. One or two drunken women managed to overcome their nervous revulsion and tried to start a conversation with him. That's when the stink of his urine soaked clothing came in handy. The well intentioned women made a swift exit on their high heels and no one was able to see Chu's face long enough to identify him.

Chu did more to complete his disguise than just sit on a street corner and pee on himself. The three layers of clothes he wore were caked with mud and grime until they attained the dull brownish gray of urban poverty. His position next to a grimy dumpster made rats more inclined to keep him company than people. Finally, several shopping bags full of half eaten food and odd pieces of junk created a barrier the members of polite society weren't willing to cross. Like thousands of other New Yorkers, Chu gained the ability to hide in plain sight on a busy street corner in the middle of Manhattan. Unlike real homeless people, Chu could go home and take a shower after he finished his stakeout of the Red Crane.

The building and surrounding area looked similar to the pictures he'd seen online, but the cover of darkness, the constant hum of liquor fueled chatter and the energy of people in motion gave the scene life. Chu watched the people come and go from the Red Crane, looking for reasons to abort the mission.

He collected information with his eyes, his ears and electronic tools to augment his perception. Wedged between his threadbare coat and tattered jacket he kept a waterproof, hands free DV micro camera. He kept it trained on the front of the building, its one hundred and seventy degree lens able to catch both doors and most of the street in front. He only had about an hour and a half of battery life, so he couldn't leave it on all night, and the camera wasn't designed to zoom in, so he couldn't focus it on faces or license plates, but the video it captured would reinforce all the bad news Chu saw and heard for two chilly nights next to the dumpster.

On the first night, the Fuk Ching were out in force. The gang used BMW's as their status symbols and Chu counted at least four different ones parked in front of or around the Red Crane at various times of the night. All the male drivers and passengers sported bald heads, steroid induced broad shoulders and bad attitudes. Twice Chu saw a couple of them come out of the massage parlor leading a young woman by the arm. Neither of the women dressed like stereotypical hookers, but the nervous look in their eyes and the identical backpacks they carried raised questions for Chu. He didn't know if their bags held massage oils or sex toys. He couldn't tell if they went to a private outcall massage or sold to some sex maniac on a permanent basis. He could only watch and wait.

One girl came back in a different BMW a few hours later. Her hair was a tangled mess. She walked with a limp and she clutched her arms around her body as if she was trying to comfort herself. Chu felt his jaw clench at the thought of the suffering she might have suffered. His anger became a pit in his stomach when he realized the second woman never came back at all.

The second night of surveillance made things much worse. Around three in the morning, when the crowds began to thin and the energy of the street began to ebb, two men walked up to the Red Crane and into the massage parlor. The basement business took its last official client at eleven and closed at midnight. The sign on the door said 'We're closed, please come again' but these two ignored the sign and the official hours. They didn't even bother to knock. They walked right in, knowing the door would be unlocked. They carried themselves like frequent customers.

Chu also noticed their look. Both had their hair cut military short. Neither wore any jewelry. The fanny packs hanging low across their stomachs offered the most telling detail. The two new patrons to the club were cops.

Chu captured all of it on video when the men went into the Red Crane. He took their pictures again when they came out of the restaurant three hours later. Their faces were flushed and they carried the same smiles Chu recognized from his early days of hooking up in the men's room of Splash. They weren't basking in the afterglow of a late night sesame chicken feast. Chu forced himself to stay in position until the cops turned the corner before he moved. The temptation to pack up and move was hard to overcome. He finally understood why he had such a bad feeling about this job. Now Baker would have to see it too.

## Chapter Four: Why Don't We Just...

"I really don't see any reason to abort."

Chu rubbed his eyes and fought the urge to bang his forehead on the steering wheel. The three men sat in a car inching along in traffic going downtown on Ninth Avenue, hidden among the throng of honking cars trying to get to the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour. Driving in a bumper to bumper mess felt more soothing than listening to Baker's rationalizations.

"I mean, it all makes sense, right? If the cops are patrons of the Crane, it explains why the police won't go in and raid the place. It could also explain how the place can operate in the middle of three police stations. I wouldn't be surprised if the Crane wasn't common knowledge for everyone working all three precincts."

Chu shrugged his shoulders and honked the horn. "So if they might be in there on any given night, why would we want go in there too?"

"Are you saying the client's giving us a green light to take down cops?" Trent sounded eager, as if he was looking for a reason to attack authority.

"Absolutely not," Baker glanced out his window to scan for threats without being obvious. "The client does not have that kind of authorization and under no circumstances are you cleared to engage any law enforcement officers."

Chu leaned on the horn again. "So how are we supposed to clear out a nest of slave traders if the cops might be in there protecting them?"

"We designated this as a surgical strike, remember? Your targets are the Fuk Ching, not the slaves, not the johns. I want to hit them with precision tools, not blunt instruments."

"And how are we supposed to do that?"

Baker shrugged. "You tell me. You did the analysis. You're the precision instruments. You'll be the ones pulling the trigger. If anyone is in a position to determine an execution method, it's you guys, not me."

Trent cracked his knuckles behind Chu's head. "Why don't we just cut the power and go in with NVG goggles? They might have flashlights or try to use their cell phones to compensate, but we can use the sensory advantage to pick them off blind."

Baker rocked his head back and forth in Chu's rear view mirror as if deliberating. "Maybe, but if the lights suddenly go out, then everyone knows there's a problem. The snakeheads might go in and out of the building looking for the problem, which takes the op into the street. The women could be used as human shields. After Hurricane Sandy, they might even have their own backup generator as part of the restaurant system. I don't think we gain a tactical advantage by turning out the lights."

Trent had other ideas. Chu imagined him sitting up at night thinking of different assault options. "Well, when I was in the rooftop bar next door, I could see the windows were sealed shut, probably to keep the women from escaping or calling for help. Why don't we use it against them?"

"How?"

"Air circulation is limited to the ventilation system on the roof. Any chance you could get your hands on something like Agent 15 or some other type of sleeping gas? We can pump the building and then go in to do the cleanup. If everyone is asleep, then it will be easier for us to pick out the viable targets from the off limits ones and..."

"And there will be traces of the gas all over the place when the cops do show up and do a forensics sweep." Baker cut in with a raised hand. "Even if we could get enough fentanyl to knockout the entire building, someone would be able to trace the purchase back to us. Besides, you two aren't trained to use that shit and we don't know what kind of drugs the snakeheads are giving the slaves. I don't want this to turn into another Dubrovka Theater crisis".

Chu inched into another lane to take him away from the Tunnel. "You were hanging out in a rooftop bar while I was sitting next to a dumpster all night?"

"Hey, I needed to get a look at the outer structure and the roof. The bar offered a good vantage point and they have excellent ceviche."

"Fuck you with a brick."

"Gentlemen, we need to focus. So far I haven't heard any good options for insertion, execution and extraction."

Chu slammed down on the brakes as a truck cut in front of him. "Maybe there are no good options. Didn't Sun Tzu say not every castle should be assaulted?"

"Actually, he advocated against the sieges of fortresses because the army lost the element of surprise and were a waste of time and lives, but I appreciate you trying to throw my shit back in my face." Baker breathed a heavy sigh and shifted his gaze out the window.

Chu felt the need to lighten the mood fast. "Hey I was just trying to..."

"Why don't you just try to change your focus from negativity to creativity and come up with a suggestion we can use for a change?"

Baker's sudden frustration took Chu's voice away for a moment. He struggled to recover and spoke before he could think. "Maybe we could set a fire alarm or maybe start a small fire in the front to..."

"To do what, drag EMS into the firefight or guarantee every slave gets killed to keep them quiet?" Baker's cane pounded the floor of the car to emphasize his anger. "We can't have public distractions. We can't move the operation out of the building and we can't walk away with a building full of dead women. Are we clear?"

"Yeah, but Ghost..."

"Are we fucking clear?"

Part of Chu wondered what about this op made Baker so hostile. Part of him wanted to reach into the back seat and beat Baker with his own cane. But Chu suppressed the urge to violence and it came out as a brisk nod in the rear view mirror. "Yeah"

"Outstanding, then let me out here. I'll take care of my SDR on foot."

"Are you sure you don't want me to...?"

"Here's fine. You two meet me tomorrow at the hotel with some viable options. I got some shit to take care of." And for the first time Chu could remember, Warren Baker stormed away without a smile or snide comeback.

The remaining two men sat in silence until the light changed and they pulled away from the curb. Chu's voice came back then, louder than he intended. "What the fuck was that?"

"I don't know, but it sounds like this op is going to happen even if Ghost has to hobble in there and do it himself."

## Chapter Five: Homicidal Ideation

Baker wiped his mouth with a coarse napkin and sat back in his low chair. "So tell me all the amazing ideas you bright boys came up with."

The request changed the mood in the room without warning. One minute the room had the comfortable air of a three friends shooting the shit over lunch. The next moment felt like a high stakes hostage negotiation.

Chu compared the three of them sitting around the retro Formica table to King Arthur and his knights. The only differences between the two groups lay in the details. Baker, Chu and Trent hid in a suite at the Nu Hotel in Brooklyn, not the halls of Camelot. The remains of the meal around them consisted of empty Thai take out and not the grand feast fit for a king. And their discussion didn't revolve around quests of gallantry and heroism. They came together to plan cold blooded murder. The details destroyed Chu's comparison, so he tried to focus on the matter at hand instead.

"My idea is a straightforward insertion, execution and extraction. We know the restaurant takes out the garbage through the back entrance several times a day. The last dump is around one AM after the restaurant closes. We can wait in the alley and use the dump to get inside without being seen from the front door. .."

"It's not the worst plan I've heard so far."

Chu took the tepid praise as a signal to continue. "We go in hard, fast and quiet. We take out the Fuk Ching as we find them and bind any johns we encounter in plasticuffs to keep them out of our way. We clear the place out room by room, floor by floor until we reach the top. Then we just hustle downstairs and leave the same way we came."

"What do you plan to do with the women?"

Chu shrugged. "My idea is to lock them all in an empty room and let the cops find them after we're gone."

Baker rummaged through the delivery bag and fished out a tiny container of spring rolls. He didn't respond to Chu until he'd recovered his discarded package of duck sauce on the table. "It's a good start, but from an insertion standpoint, it doesn't make sense to base your entry on a variable event like taking out the garbage. If the event doesn't have a precise time, who knows how long you two could be standing in that alley? The guns and the equipment you'll have will be hard to explain to anyone who might wander back there."

"Dump times over the past two days are consistent within a thirty minute window." Trent reviewed the notes from his laptop as he spoke. "It's not the best time frame, but it's not the worst one either."

"True, but I don't think I'm comfortable conceding higher ground to the opposition. Also, I don't want you guys coming out the same way you got in. There's too much chance of things going sideways if you have to retrace your steps."

"So you like my whole plan except for the beginning, the middle and the end?"

Baker's smile had a cynical edge. "I like the effort and the attitude. Only the details need work."

Trent spun his laptop around to face them with the authority of a corporate CEO. His screen showed an overhead map of Chinatown, with a tight zoom on the Red Crane building. "My plan doesn't involve relying on the bus boys to take out the garbage, it gives us control over higher ground and it doesn't retrace steps."

"I like it already."

"I say we insert through the roof. We can take the fire escape on this building here," Trent reached over and pointed to the tenement next door, access the Red Crane with a short jump and then pop the lock on the roof door. From there we sweep the rooms and exit through the back door."

Chu closed his notebook without taking his eyes off the map. "This is a variation on the plan you used uptown, isn't it?"

Trent raised an eyebrow. "The plan doesn't have to be original. It just has to be good."

"Ok, but we're after several targets now, not just one. This plan sounds like we'll be pushing them out into the street once they know we're there."

Baker countered before Trent could defend his proposal. "If you do this right, they won't know you're there. Besides, they have a certain amount of incentive to keep things indoors. Once they come outside, they risk exposing their whole operation to public cell phone cameras. We can use their greed and their need for secrecy to control the playing field."

Chu suppressed the urge to push back against Baker's optimism, so he decided to focus on his skill set. "OK, but how far is the jump from one building to another? Trent knows parkour, I don't. Even if I could make the jump, I don't think I could do it quietly enough to maintain the element of surprise."

Baker took the opportunity to agree. "Can't argue with that point," He rested his head in his hand as he looked to Trent. "Your concept doesn't match the skill set of your team, but maybe we can cannibalize these plans and come up with some viable options."

"Options like what?"

"Why don't we consider a pincer movement?" Baker held his hand out and parallel to each other over the table. "You can take a position on the roof and watch the back door. Smoke can stay in across the street on his bike. When you see the busboys dump the garbage, you can give the signal and Smoke can cover the distance and get inside. When you see his entry, you can enter the building through the roof. You two can take out the opposition simultaneously from opposite sides of the structure, meet in the middle and then go out the side window onto the fire escape. It's not the ideal scenario but..."

"I don't see that working" Trent turned his laptop back to pull up another file. Based on our estimates, we could have up to ten on the ground. It doesn't make sense to split up our firepower if we have to sweep multiple rooms. If we're going to take out this many targets, were going to have to watch each other's back."

Baker stretched out, folding his hands behind his head as if he was on a porch in the summer time contemplating a nap. "Yeah, single room clearing is always tricky. The tactical advantage you gain from attacking in both directions comes at the cost of a diluted attack on both ends."

"Maybe our force capabilities aren't suited for the op..." Chu tried to project the most confident and professional attitude he could muster because this was his best chance. Now was the time to kill this op before it killed them.

He wouldn't get a better shot at changing Baker's mind. The research was done. The reconnaissance was recorded. They'd all developed potential plans and couldn't come up with a viable solution. If they couldn't get a bigger team or change the mission parameters, what choice did Baker have but to abort?

The look Baker shot at Chu was half dismissive annoyance and half stubborn determination. "Shadow, what parkour moves would you need to know if you wanted to access the roof of the Red Crane?"

"Not much, landing, rolling, a gap jump for sure and maybe a wall run just in case the fire escape is hard to access."

"And how long would it take you to teach someone all those graceful maneuvers?"

"For a beginner, it would take a couple days. For an operator it would only take a couple of hours, but we'd have to rule out using Dragon Skin. The armor is too heavy for beginners to wear it and be effective." Chu saw where this was going, but he didn't interrupt.

"Well maybe we can use the terrain to maximize our force capability." Baker glanced over at Chu with a confrontational look in his eye. "Two men could gap jump or whatever the hell you call it across the building onto the roof of the Red Crane. You could access the building from the top, sweep the rooms as you went down and exit from the rear alley. You'll attack from an unexpected direction, you'll keep the element of surprise and the higher ground without diluting your forces and you don't have to go back the way you came."

Trent leaned back and folded his arms in a partial mirror of Baker's posture. "It sounds good to me. You up for a little added training, Smoke?"

Chu locked eyes with Baker as the question echoed through the room. "Yeah Smoke, how would you like to learn to fly like your friend here?"

The heat rising to his face flared his nostrils. He felt his teeth grind as his jaw locked. The smoldering flare of rage bubbled up in his stomach and seeped into his limbs. Baker's play was pure peer pressure. It questioned Chu's commitment to the team as well as his manhood. Chu had experience with the heavy handed tactic. His father used it to goad Chu into submission when he tried to protect his mother from domestic abuse. His superiors in the DSS used it to attack his sexual preference without saying anything to his face. Chu spent long nights imagining painful revenge on both those men, and a part of his mind wanted to punish Baker too.

But Chu knew what he should do. He knew nothing would make Baker abort this mission. If Chu wanted out, he'd have to get up and walk out the door.

"It doesn't sound like the best option to me. The risk might not be worth the..."

"Shadow, you said this is the same maneuver you did when you took out Rafael Ramon, right?"

"Basically..."

"And how many of the Uptown Gods did you take out on your way to Ramon?"

"Five or six..."

"So in theory, you could handle this solo, right?"

Chu threw up his hands. "That doesn't make any fucking sense and you know it..."

Trent ignored Chu's protest, lacing his hands behind his head to fully adopt Baker's form. "I guess so. The only major snag would be separating the johns from the opposition."

"What if we expanded the rules of engagement? What if I said all males not readily identifiable as slaves could be acceptable targets?"

"So now you're talking about wiping out everyone in the building, cops as well as johns?"

Baker shrugged his shoulders and gave Chu a blank look. "The cops are johns in the Red Crane. That's what the intel says. If Shadow is going in alone we need to make certain allowances..."

"What are you trying to prove?"

"I'm not trying to prove anything, Smoke. I'm trying to plan an op using the resources I have available. If you don't want the job, don't take it. But this op is going to happen with or without you."

"Even if it means losing Trent?"

"Hey, don't drag me into the middle of your drama." Trent got up from the table in one fluid move. "You two want to have a catfight, fine. Just let me know when you're finished fucking around so I can go back to planning. This shit is going to be twice as hard if I have to do it on my own."

Chu didn't take his eyes off Baker as he spoke. "You don't have to do it on your own, Shadow. You don't have to do it at all."

Baker's gaze didn't flinch. "You don't get it. Smoke. He wants to save those girls. He wants to do this op. He's in. I'm in. What you need to do is decide if you're in. Don't try to protect him from himself. Don't try to use him to justify your refusal. None of that's going to work. If you want to watch his back, you're going to go into the shit with him. If not, just walk away." The ultimatum hung in the air like the stench of rotting corpses before Baker finished his outburst. "So answer the call Smoke. Are you in or out?"

"It must be really easy for you to send your friends into a shit show, huh?"

Baker tapped his shattered leg. "If I could learn parkour, I'd go in for you. If you don't go in, I'll drive the extraction vehicle myself and provide cover for Shadow's exit. Just decide if you're in or out so I can put the date in my calendar."

Chu shook his head and fought the urge to lash out, not knowing who angered him more. Was it Baker for his pig-headed insistence to ignore good tradecraft, or Trent for throwing himself into the job and not displaying any common sense? Maybe he was just mad at himself for the choice he already made.

"How soon can I start learning parkour, Shadow?"

"We can get you into Brooklyn Zoo on Sunday. They have an open..."

"No," Baker cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I don't want any training in public. I'll talk to someone over at Chelsea Piers and get you some private time after hours. We need to keep all of this under wraps."

"Ok..."

Baker turned to Chu with the cold and final tones of a parent. "And we need you to square your shit away. No more passive resistance, no more half-hearted involvement. If you're in, be all the way in. You're a liability to everybody if you're not."

"No worries, I got it." But Chu didn't get it and his confusion ate away at him more than anything about the mission could.

## Chapter Six: Casualty of Lust

"So why the fuck is this so important, anyway?"

Chu's confused frustration echoed through the cavernous expanse of the empty sports complex. Chelsea Piers used to be just another warehouse on the Hudson, storing meat and other cargo from ships docked in the adjacent harbor. But gentrification in the area produced an inevitable wave of high maintenance health conscious professionals who pushed out the butchers, longshoremen and hookers from this part of town. Now Chelsea Piers was one of the most exclusive health clubs in the city. Chu didn't know what connections Baker had to get them into the space in the middle of the night, but Baker's social network didn't concern Chu tonight.

Trent didn't share his anxiety. "The gap jump is important because no one wants you falling five stories into a rat infested alley or breaking your legs as you try to make the jump. If you're going to land properly you have to keep your legs bent when you're in the air with the ball of your foot pointed towards..."

"I know why the jump is important, moron. That's not what I'm talking about." Chu took a running start of half a dozen steps and then launched himself into the air. He sailed over a mat Trent used to represent the space between the two buildings. Chu's task was to run up to the mat as if it was the edge of a roof and then leap over it. A successful jump would place him on the other side without injury. But Chu landed on the mat, stumbled and collapsed onto his knees near Trent's feet.

"It is important, because if you keep jumping like that you'll be dead before the op even starts."

Chu got up and stepped away from the mat. "I get it, but it still doesn't explain why Ghost needs this done so bad."

Trent's body glided up to the mat, over the imagined expanse and down on the opposite side with the natural grace of a cat. He landed without a sound into a roll ending right in front of his friend.

"So saving a dozen women from a life of slavery isn't enough for you?"

"Sure, but we've rescued women and children before. Baker never let the work cloud his judgment in other ops. He never let the goal become more important than his tradecraft." Chu took another jump, pumping his legs harder as he ran. His body cleared the mat, but he landed in an awkward stumble, almost crashing into Trent as he tried to stop himself. "There's something else going on this time."

"Well, you need to figure it out or forget about it if you're going to do this right. You're not concentrating on the movement. If you keep this up, you'll break both your ankles."

Chu took a swig of water from his bottle before he responded. "I'm starting to think he's trying to get revenge on the Fuk Ching for some reason. Maybe saving the women is just a cover for taking out someone inside the gang."

"I doubt it." Trent made the second jump look easier than the first, landing without a roll and continuing his run as if in mid stride. "If this was about one gang member or even a group of them, he wouldn't be so fixated on the Red Crane. He'd have us take them out away from their home base because they'd be easier targets when they were isolated."

"Then what do you think is going on?"

"Maybe he's trying to save a specific girl in the building."

"But this isn't a rescue op. It's an assault. He didn't tell us to find anyone specific in the building or pull them out. Who are we saving by building up a body count?"

"Maybe it's not about a woman in the building. Maybe it's for a woman on the outside."

"Like who?"

"The client"

"How do you know the client is a woman?"

"Because Baker lives for women. What man does he spend time with besides us?"

Chu shrugged.

"And he only tolerates us because we're useful. Trust me, Baker might be getting paid for this op and he might gain some strategic advantage from it, but when you strip away all the nonsense, Baker's first and only love is the ladies."

"That's some stupid ass straight boy bullshit." Chu took another jump, pounding angry steps before takeoff. The harsh boom of his landing echoed through the empty warehouse and shot pain up the back of his legs.

"Land on the balls of your feet, not your heels or you'll break your..."

Chu wasn't interested in advice. "Baker has a hot wife in an open marriage. He can pick up any woman he wants any time he wants and do whatever he wants with them. Why the fuck would he risk our lives to get a piece of ass?"

Trent didn't match Chu's agitated tone. "If I had to guess, I'd say this is about frustration."

"Your damn right it's about frustration. Why the hell should I get shot for his sex life?"

"It's a good question, but I wasn't talking about your frustration. I was talking about his."

The words stopped Chu's rant as the anger formed in his mouth. He listened to what Trent said, although it was hard to hear over the heavy exertion of his own breathing.

"Ever since Karbala, Baker's felt impotent. Not in terms of sex, but when it comes to operations. He doesn't want to lead from the rear. He wants to be with us, on the street and in the fight. But he can't and it kills him. In a lot of ways, the sex he looks for is a coping mechanism for his inability to work in the field."

"We've had other ops since Karbala. What makes this one so different?"

Trent shrugged before taking a third vault without apparent effort or exertion. "Maybe the client is a woman and the Red Crane is important to her. Maybe Baker wants to do the op himself to impress her, so he pushes us to do it because we're the ones he trusts the most."

"Do you really believe that's what this is about?" The thought of Baker's crippling injury and his constant frustration couldn't wipe away the color of blood from Chu's vision.

"I don't know, but I don't really care. People have used us for worse goals than women. Politicians send us into raid insurgent camps when they want to get more votes. Corporations use us to make more money. Generals stroke their own egos with useless combat operations. Everyone has an angle when we start sending rounds down range. At least this way..."

"How is this better? Since when did this make more sense?"

"Since forever. Julius Caesar went to war to satisfy Cleopatra. Helen of Troy sparked one of the biggest conflicts in ancient history. Men have always used violence and power to get women. Baker isn't breaking any new ground here. "

Chu thought about his jump and all his previous mistakes. He ran to the mat thinking about Baker and Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and his own father. He took off wondering how much blood spilled and how many men died for a handful of leaders to prove their manhood.

Chu collapsed into a roll on the other side of the mat wondering if he would be the next casualty of lust.

He stood up next to Trent wondering why he couldn't walk away.

"That was better." Trent's encouragement had no hint of irony or ridicule. "Your form and your focus are getting better. Try it a few more times."

Chu went back to the mat without a word. His form was getting better, but he couldn't let go of an image of Baker building his bed on the corpses of his friends.

## Chapter Seven: Dry Run

"Go! Go! Go!"

Chu took the point, feeling the harsh blast of early morning air hit his ears as he moved. The bandana covering his nose and mouth kept the lower half of his face warm. The goggles and watch cap protected the top. But the wireless microphone wedged in his ear did nothing to keep out the cold. Chu shut out the whistling wind as he reached the first door, crouching near the frame against the wall.

He held up his hand in a silent signal to stop. He felt Trent's body freeze. Their tight formation gave Chu the sensation of his partner riding on his back. With one hand aiming the muzzle of his weapon down and away, Chu reached for his belt and unspooled the fiber optic cable wrapped around his waist.

He didn't look down the hall or back the way he came. He trusted Trent to watch his back and could feel his partner move his head and shoulders to scan the corridor. Chu concentrated on slipping the thin pinhole lens underneath the door and glancing at the small monitor attached to the inside of his wrist.

The image on the screen shifted from light to dark before Chu could see his target. His only warning before the door slammed inward and the sounds of gunfire filled the corridor was the creak of the turning doorknob. Chu never saw his killer. He only heard the soft crack of Trent's suppressed weapon firing into the room over his head and felt several rounds hit him in his shoulder, stomach and hip. Chu fell backwards, writhing in pain and cursing himself.

"Your auditory signature was fifteen decibels above tolerance for these types of walls." Baker tried to be even and nonjudgmental in his assessment, but Chu could hear the disappointment through the electronic crackle in his ear. "You need to be twelve to eighteen inches from the door frame prior to entry. If you stack up against the wall, the drag of your clothing will give you away."

"Understood" Trent answered with enthusiasm, even though it was Chu who made the mistake.

"Move to position twenty three, same formation, same drill."

Chu bounced back to his feet and recoiled his camera. "Moving." The level of energy in his speech didn't match the vigor of his motion.

Chu enjoyed training. The idea of waking up in the middle of the night, driving to the backwoods of Eastern Pennsylvania and being shot with simulated 9mm rounds didn't thrill him, but working with Trent did. The two men were outside the kill house before dawn preparing. They tested their load outs, reviewed their engagement protocols and walked through dry runs before moving into the kill house.

The coordinated rhythm they shared in Iraq didn't come back all at once. Each of them had continued to train and hone their skills separately since Nightwatch disbanded, but combining their individual patterns into a seamless dance required practice. They didn't move into the kill house until mid-morning, when a familiar fluidity began to replace the rust of disuse.

Chu made a signal to stop and positioned himself away from the wall. The snake went under the door and he took his time to scan all four corners of the room. Without turning his head or pointing his weapon away from the door, Chu held up his hand and gave a series of rapid signals to Trent:

I see four hostiles, two pistols left, one pistol right, one shotgun right.

Trent's silent squeeze on his shoulder let Chu know he understood. He put the camera away and reached back, squeezing Trent's ankle as a signal to move.

Trent moved without a sound. He got in front of Chu with a low compact profile, twisted the door handle and entered the room in one motion. Chu went in a few inches behind to both limit their exposure in the fatal funnel of the doorway and cover the side of the room Trent couldn't see. Trent moved left, firing as he cleared the doorway. Chu moved right, firing two rounds into the hard corner before sweeping the barrel of his suppressed weapon left to put three more rounds into the cross corner.

The red marking compound of the rounds formed tight groups on the chest and stomachs of the men in the room. Both Chu's men dropped to their knees, the signal they were 'dead' and eliminated from the exercise.

Then Chu realized one of his men wasn't a man at all. She wore the same black overalls as the rest of the men acting as Fu Ching gang members. She had the same protective gear on her face, hands and head to keep her from being injured by the simunitions. But she stood several inches below the rest of the opposition and she had a three inch "C" on her left shoulder, right next to the two red stains Chu just gave her.

"Please stop shooting the civilians." Baker sighed into their ears. "I would appreciate a little discretion when you send your rounds down range. Let's move to position twenty four. Switch formation, same drill."

Chu fell in behind Trent and reloaded his SIG. Where did Baker get off talking about discretion? What kind of discretion did he use when he decided to ask his friends to take on a mission without proper support or resources?

Trent positioned himself near the next door and pulled out his own snake cam. Chu scanned the hallway for threats. Baker had the kill house modified to resemble other slave houses raided in the past by the FBI, MI5 and Hong Kong's SDU. How much did all this cost? How much time, effort and blood did Baker waste on one woman? What could possibly justify this kind of expense? Was she some Helen of Troy who deserved this level of sacrifice to get into her pants?

Trent gave Chu the signal. Chu squeezed his leg in response. How could he blame Baker for what he did? He was a man after all and men chased women. They didn't care what they spent or who got hurt in the process. But Chu didn't chase women. So why did he stay? Why did he wake up in the middle of the night and put himself through all this to risk his life for someone so...

Chu opened the door and turned on the ball of his foot. His weapon was up and level with his shoulder. The hard corner in front of him was clear of threats at eye level.

But he didn't see the man lying on the ground under his field of vision. He only felt the simunition rounds catch him, once in the groin and once in the heart.

"Let's take a break people." Baker didn't try to hide his frustration. "Smoke, can you meet me in the manager's office?"

Chu slid the safety on his gun and holstered it without looking at the other men in the room. Trent gave him a supportive pat on the shoulder, but Chu could only feel the weight of anxiety and failure.

## Chapter Eight: Cost of Goods Sold

"So what's on your mind, Smoke?"

Baker sat in the management office of the DMZ Training Academy as if he owned the place. The deep red tie and gold tie bar seemed out of place against the backdrop of combat photos and shooting trophies against the wall, but everything felt out of place to Chu at this point.

"I guess I'm just shaking off some rust."

"You're not paying attention to yourself or your environment. You're ignoring signals from your teammate and walking through the kill house in a fog. Your errors aren't physical, they're mental. Your mind's not in the game because you're thinking about something else. So what is it?"

"It's nothing. I just need a couple more trips through the house to..."

"We don't have many more trips left. This is the last dry run before we go live. If you're head isn't in the game now, it's never going to be."

"I can do the op."

"I know you can do it. What I don't know is why you don't just fucking do it. Every time I turn around you're fighting me or trying to shut this down..."

"I just don't know what this is about."

"Since when does a shooter need to know why? You know who, where, when and how. You know how to get in and how to get out. At what point did the big picture become important to you?"

"When the job stopped making sense, when you start to ignore tactics and tradecraft for a questionable objective, when you decide to throw your friends into the fire over a woman."

Chu's last words made Baker pause. The two men locked eyes for a moment before Baker shook his head. The look on his face became a stone mask of rejection. "If you think this is about a woman, you need to pack up your gear and walk away."

Chu felt his own head shaking in a futile attempt to take back his last words. "If it's not about a woman, then tell me what it's about."

Baker's body didn't move at all. If anything, his frame took on the closed rigidity of his gaze. "If you think I'd treat you that way after all the shit we've seen, you need to get the fuck out."

"I need to know who she is and why she's so important."

"Are you jealous?"

The question hit him like a slap across the face. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Does the idea of me throwing money and effort into a woman and ignoring you piss you off? You feel like I'm rejecting you for some random pussy?"

Chu couldn't stop his upper lip from trembling as he lashed out. "Fuck you, Warren. Don't try to turn this into some homophobic bullshit. I don't give a damn who you fuck or what your crippled ass does when I'm not around. If you don't have the balls to tell me the truth about this op, fine. But don't try to flip this on me and try to turn your bad op into my desperate boy crush. You're not nearly as cute as you think you are."

Baker couldn't stop shaking his head. "You don't want to know the truth."

"Don't tell me what I want. Answer my fucking question. I deserve to know who this is about."

Baker's face twisted into a grimace, as if he'd swallowed something sour or choked back bile in his throat. "This is about me."

"Don't give me riddles, Warren. Give me answers."

Baker gave him a question instead. "Did you know I grew up in Darien, Connecticut?"

"I know you were a spoiled brat who went to private school, drove around in a Mercedes and generally lived like an over privileged douchebag. What does any of that have to do with my fucking question?"

"How do you think my family got its money? How do you think we paid for our entitlement?"

"I have no idea. Did your grandfather invent the douchebag?"

"No. My family was in the shipping business. We were one of the largest and most influential private fleets in England since the sixteenth century."

"That's nice. But so the fuck what?"

"And what do you think we shipped back and forth during America's early days?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know? Coffee? Wood? Who gives a fuck?"

"I'm sure the slaves gave a fuck."

Chu couldn't form a response in words, but the look on his face must have revealed his confusion.

"My family helped start the Ivory Trading Group. We captured slaves in Western Africa, traded them for wood and shit in the Caribbean, and America and then sold the raw materials in England and Spain for a profit."

Chu sat down in a chair opposite Baker's desk. His knees felt unstable beneath him. "Your family bought and sold slaves?"

Baker's shrug had none of the relaxed nonchalance of his normal movements. "A lot of families were in the slave trade. My family just happened to be particularly good at it."

"When did you find out?"

"After I joined the CIA I did an extensive background check to make sure I didn't have any incidents in my past someone could use against me. I found out about the Ivory Trading Group in the British archives."

"Does the rest of your family know?"

"I took the records to my father. He didn't deny the connection."

"What did he say?"

Warren Baker looked away from Chu. His eyes seemed to stare at a painful past event. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his fortune depends on his not understanding it."

"So what did you decide to do?"

"I decided to do something about it. I stopped talking about it. I put my head down and focused on being a case officer. I collected information and assets to find, fix, and neutralize modern slave trading operations as I found them.

Chu couldn't find anything to do with his hands and he couldn't look Baker in the face. "Fine, but the Ivory Group was around three hundred years ago. It's fucked up, but you can't hold yourself responsible for stuff that ended after the Civil War."

"What makes you think the Ivory Group folded after the Civil War?"

"Slavery was outlawed and..."

"Slavery was officially abolished in America in 1865, but it didn't end. It flourished in the West during the building of the railroads. It continued in Africa and India during the Imperialist period in Europe. It was a staple in Asia long before Marco Polo got to China and became the origins of the shetou. Based on who you listen to, slavery is bigger now than it was before the Civil War."

Chu saw the pieces falling together. "And the Ivory Group is still a part of it?"

Baker shook his head. "The Ivory Group doesn't exist anymore as an official corporation. It's broken up into regional organizations."

"Like the Fuk Ching in New York..."

"Like the Fuk Ching. You remember the Golden Venture?"

"You mean the ship all those people died on?"

"Yeah, the one that lead to the arrest of Sister Ping. That ship was registered to a Macau subsidiary once owned by the Ivory Group."

"So the Fuk Ching took over where the Ivory Group left off, and you want to take them out to get back at your family for..."

Baker held up his hand to correct Chu. "I want to stop the cycle of brutality my family started. Revenge isn't doing anything to help anyone. This op is about economics. If we can make the cost of doing business high enough, a lot of these regional groups will close up shop and move onto other things."

Chu took a moment to soak it all in. The revelation swirled around him like a tornado. He looked back up at Baker and saw his friend staring off into the middle distance with his head in his hand. How did it feel for him to know his wealth and prosperity came from the suffering of a dozen generations? What kind of isolation did he feel when his family rejected the truth? What would Chu do in Baker's shoes? Would he have the determination and independence to try and change things on his own? Would he be able to hide the secret from everyone and project Warren's image of relaxed confidence? Chu didn't think he could do what Baker did. But he knew what he could do.

He gathered up his gear and headed for the door. "We'll be ready when the op goes live. No worries."

Baker nodded back to him and Chu thought he saw a smile, but the far away pain in Baker's eyes overpowered his attempts to reduce the stress between them.

## Chapter Nine: Late Night Delivery

Chu found purity in movement. He didn't have to struggle with the motivations of his handlers or the morality of his mission. He didn't have to think about rich kids living in Connecticut or their ties to colonial slave traders. He didn't have to wonder why. Once his mission started, his world boiled down to who, what, where and when. He only had to worry about three things, insertion, execution and extraction.

The tiny, environmentally friendly, electric bike he rode felt flimsy and comical as he puttered down through the streets of Chinatown, but it served as an important part of his disguise. No one would question one more Asian man riding an electric bike and wearing the orange safety vest of a Chinese food delivery worker. Hundreds of similar men buzzed all through Manhattan on any given night.

The bike and his vest gave him perfect cover to weave through the operational area and ensure he wasn't being followed. Where a casual observer would see yet another late night delivery, Chu had a chance to compare the environment to previous nights, scan for possible opposition and confirm his second and third escape routes. The restaurant emblazoned on the back of the vest didn't exist, and his covered delivery basket held tactical gear instead of fried rice, but the little bike ensured Chu's cover as he turned into the alley near the Red Crane.

Chu shut off the bike and listened for signs of danger. The steady pounding of music pulsed from the opposite wall and the roar of an accelerating bus echoed in the distance, but he didn't hear any reaction to his presence to make him uneasy. In the corner of the alley, near a rusting dumpster Chu saw three beer bottles. The ones on the left and the right sat in a straight line. The bottle in the middle had been smashed into shards. Recognizing Trent's signal, Chu reached into his bike bag and pulled out his gear. He stripped off his neon safety vest, so only his drab nondescript jacket remained. He replaced his safety helmet with a black watch cap and pulled it low over his forehead. After taking one last glance towards the alley behind him, he hoisted the pack onto his back, climbed onto the dumpster and up the tenement fire escape.

## Chapter Ten: Contact with Reality

Trent sat perched in the darkness. His outline was only visible because Chu knew where to look. As he hoisted himself onto the roof, he could make out the barrel of Trent's gun aimed in his direction. Chu held up the hand signal designating himself as a friendly. He didn't make any sudden movements until Trent responded with the appropriate signal. Only then did he approach and get close enough to whisper.

"We're clear" Trent said in a hiss Chu struggled to hear "but there's an after party on the rooftop next door. We need to wait to give ourselves a clear jump."

Chu nodded, checking his weapon and pulling the bandana over his face to match Trent's movements. Then they waited. It was more than an hour before the music died down, and a half an hour more before the laughter faded. Chu wondered how many of the late night party crowd paid for their pleasure with money made from slavery. How many of them knew where the money came from? How many of them would care? Chu let his mind chew on the implications of such embedded corruption until the lights on the rooftop went out and a deeper darkness enveloped their space.

Without a word or wasted motion, the two operators hustled towards the edge of the building and launched themselves off the roof. , Chu tried not to remember all the errors he made with the practice jumps. He concentrated on bending his knees in the air, pointing his toes where he wanted to land and making impact with the ball of his feet. He focused on a quiet landing, distributing his weight across his body with an even roll designed to bring him back to his feet. The feeling of weightlessness didn't last long enough for his conscious mind to run through all the steps. The weight of his tactical belt and weapons hampered his movements, but Chu touched down on the roof of the Red Crane with little noise and room to spare.

Trent landed beside him with the sound of a delicate breeze. He had his weapon up and ready when he came out of his roll, but Chu didn't waste time with envy or amazement at his friend's skill. He drew his own gun, stacked up on the door and prepared to enter the building.

With one hand aiming the muzzle of his weapon down and away, Chu reached for his belt and unspooled the fiber optic cable wrapped around his waist. He didn't look across the rooftop or back the way he came. He trusted Trent to watch his back and could feel his partner move his head and shoulders to scan the area around them. Chu concentrated on slipping the thin pinhole lens underneath the door and glancing at the small monitor attached to the inside of his wrist.

The dull grey stone of the stairwell had a weak naked bulb providing more shadow than light. Chu didn't see any movement and he couldn't hear any voices or other noise from the other side of the door. He was about to give Trent the signal to breach the door when he noticed the small box near the upper hinge.

It had the look of a cheap plastic toy and the wire connecting it to the door looked flimsy and insignificant, but Chu recognized the door alarm as a lethal deterrent to their insertion. He didn't know if the alarm would be a blaring wail loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear or a silent signal to a security room or the front desk. It probably served as a deterrent to the slaves escaping through the roof, but it could keep them out just as well as keeping the girls inside.

Chu gave Trent the hand signal for alarm and no opposition. Trent crouched down next to him and made a cutting motion with his fingers, suggesting they might cut the alarm somehow. Chu shook his head. The position of the alarm on the other side of the door made it impossible to access from their side. Chu scanned the roof, wondering how Baker would react if they gave up on the mission. They all knew no plan survives contact with reality, but aborting at the first sign of resistance would only reinforce Chu's opposition to the op. Frustration began to burn the back of his throat when he noticed the handle of Trent's knife in his shoulder harness.

Chu led his partner away from the door and toward the fire escape on the side of the building. Scanning the metal walkway for opposition, the dark figures crept down the stairs until they reached the fourth floor window. The glass was painted black and covered with dust. The old inner lock was wedged in tight. But Chu motioned at Trent's knife and twisted his wrist in a sliding motion near the top of the window.

The two men crouched opposite a faceless brick wall, so Chu only had to scan the rooftop above and the alley below as Trent worked. After a few seconds of quiet scraping, Trent stopped and inserted his snake cam in the space he cut away with the knife. Chu didn't hear any movement on the other side of the window and Trent confirmed the room was empty with the camera. He also confirmed the absence of an alarm on the window glass.

It took him another minute to force the ancient lock open with his knife, but before anyone ventured into the alley or looked over the edge of the roof, Smoke and Shadow inserted themselves into the Red Crane through the window they forced open.

## Chapter Eleven: Ruthless Memories

Once their eyes adjusted from the street lamp gloom to the unlit darkness of the storeroom, Chu took the point and led them through stacked piles of battered furniture to the door leading out of the abandoned apartment. He slipped the cam under the door without a sound and scanned the hallway for signs of life. He flashed signals over his shoulder before drawing his gun.

Two hostiles, both armed but guns not drawn, one incoming.

The double squeeze on his shoulder as he drew his weapon told Chu everything he needed to know about their next move. The welcome familiar warmth of adrenalin in his system moved his hand in a smooth graceful motion as the shadow of footsteps passed by their door.

Chu swung the door open and slid back behind the door frame. The startled sentry only had time to flinch in surprise and gasp before Trent reached out and plunged his knife into his victim's clavicle. The dying body collapsed into the room as Trent dragged him out of the doorway, allowing Chu space to step into the hall. In a low crouch, braced against the door frame, Chu put two rounds down range, hitting his target in the shoulder and the head. The two men went down in less than three seconds without any sounds of alarm raised on the floor.

Chu scanned the hall with his weapon held up at eye level while he waited for Trent. He knew his partner searched for cellphones, keys or other personal effects Baker could use as intel later. When the soft squeeze pressed into his shoulder, Chu moved to the next door in the corridor, positioned far enough away to avoid dragging his clothing on the rough wood panel wall.

The lens on the snake cam revealed a scene of destitution and despair. Chu saw a dozen women of various ages huddled on thin dirty cots. The ones who were asleep tossed and turned in their nightmares. Several of them rocked back and forth, crying without tears. Two girls held each other in the corner. The smaller one trying to stop the bleeding on the other girl's nose and lip. The image brought back memories of his mother's suffering at the hands of his father. The urge to rush into the room and sweep the girls out of the building tightened Chu's jaw, but he looked away from the cam and forced the image of his mother from his mind. He motioned for Trent to move on and continued to the next door.

Chu found two more rooms with similar scenes and counted about thirty women on the fourth floor. He guessed the Fuk Ching kept the slaves on the top floor because the layout matched the intel Baker had from other raids. He made a mental note to corroborate the previous information in his own report when a rhythmic slapping sound caught his attention. When he figured out where the noise came from, he motioned Trent to follow him around the corner to the last door in the corridor.

The sound had a cadence and a persistence Chu associated with a machine, but as he got closer he knew the ruthless violence of the blows could only come from a human attacker. The door was closed, but a harsh red light spilled out into the hallway under the frame. Chu moved to his position and held his body low to insert the camera. The speed of the blows remained the same, but Chu recognized the distinct sound of leather on flesh. He slid the camera underneath the door and slid back into his own nightmare.

The man had his back turned to the door. His shirt and pants were off and the pudgy folds of his flesh glistened with sweat in the light of the lava lamps. His thin boxer shorts clung to his sagging waist and fleshy legs. The skin on his flaccid muscles quivered with each swing of his arm.

He held a leather belt high over his head, swinging down with an anger born of impotence and fueled by cocaine. Chu saw the bags on the nightstand and the sprinkle of white powder spilling off the table and dancing in the red light like snow. He heard the addict cursing at his victims, blaming them for his sexual frustrations.

He had three women squatting beneath him. Naked and exposed, each one bore welts and bruises along their backs asses and thighs. One woman still had the strength to cry. Another had sores dripping blood onto the putrid stained rug. The last one didn't move or cry at all. Chu wondered if she might be dead.

Chu thought about how long these women suffered under the cruelty of this man and how many nights they'd been beaten to provide pleasure to a stranger. His thoughts went back to his own mother and her decade of torture. Images of Baker's ancestors invaded his mind and each blow of the belt forced more violence into his blood. He saw himself bursting into the room, wrapping the belt around the fat man's neck and strangling him until his eyes popped out of his head and his tongue swelled out of his mouth. Chu wanted to ram the cocaine down his throat and let the women rise up and tear the skin from his body with their nails. He wanted to pummel this man with the same heartless rhythm he used to see how he took it...

And Chu felt a persistent squeeze on his shoulder. Trent's signal snapped him out of his vengeful fantasy and back to the operational reality. He kept them in one spot too long. They had to move or risk exposure. In spite of everything he felt and anything this man might deserve, he wasn't a target. He was a john, and for tonight at least, he wasn't on the hit list.

Chu pulled the camera back from under the door and moved to the stairwell. The persistent beat of the belt on flesh pounded into Chu's ear and it didn't go away when they moved to the next floor.

## Chapter Twelve: Cold Steel

The third floor of the Red Crane held no horror or opportunity. The rooms held furniture and apparatus for various perversions, but no one suffered in them when Chu slid his camera under the door. He tried to focus on the op, instead of imagining wailing women or masochistic men.

No sentries roamed the halls and no cameras watched them drift through the hallway like a pair of silent sharks. Chu led the way down to the second floor with the beating of the belt still fresh in his mind, along with a hunger to punish someone for man's inhumanity to women.

He found his targets in the first apartment on the second floor. The tiny lens of his snake cam showed a break room or security station for the slave house. Two Fuk Ching gangsters sat on the right, drinking beer and staring at their phones. Another one lay curled into a fetal position on a small bed on the opposite side of the room. Chu didn't see their weapons, but he could see the laptop screens near the two drinking men. Images from cameras in each of the holding rooms and playrooms could be seen in various windows. Chu could even make out the flailing belt finally ending its assault on bruised innocent skin.

The image fueled his movements as he sent signals back to Trent. The squeeze of understanding on his shoulder couldn't come fast enough. Chu was tempted to burst into the room alone. But he took several deep breaths and reached back to squeeze Trent's ankle before he let his fury flow into the room.

The door opened with a rush of air and a slight thud. The sound and motion got the gangster's attention. Trent moved to the right. Chu heard three sharp snaps as the suppressed weapon unloaded into the sleeping man. Chu could see his victims watching Trent's work, unable to turn away from the sudden display of violence and death.

Their hands didn't even start moving for their waists before Chu raised his weapon and fired point blank in their direction. The head of the slaver closest to him burst into a spray of bone and blood as the first two rounds caught him beneath the eyes. The second man had a chance to open his mouth when his companion's brains hit his face, but he didn't do anything else. Chu put one bullet in his mouth and three in his chest before the warm corpse crumbled out of the chair and onto the floor.

Chu thought about pulling down his bandana and spitting on the worthless slaver, but Trent's movements helped him maintain his professional demeanor. His partner had already grabbed the cellphone from his victim and moved to take the others as Chu composed himself. Taking off the bandana would reveal his face to any cameras in the room they didn't see. Leaving saliva at the scene of a crime, even a bloody massacre like this one, gave a forensic specialist the chance to tie him to the crime. Instead of acting like a stupid amateur, Chu moved to cover the door, reaching for a spare clip for a tactical reload as he crouched in the doorway.

He reached his position just in time to see someone coming towards the security station. Chu saw an ugly slug of a man. His shirt and pants were off and the pudgy folds of his flesh glistened with sweat in the light of the hallway. His thin boxer shorts clung to his sagging waist and the skin on his flaccid muscles quivered with each step he took. His thin hair was greasy and matted on his head and a white residue painted his nose and upper lip.

He wasn't holding a belt this time, but he had something in each hand. Chu couldn't identify the shining gold object in his left hand. The barrel of the gun was unmistakable in his right.

"Stop, Po..."

Chu put three rounds into the cocaine fueled john at less than fifteen feet. The first round caught him in the stomach and he began to double over until the next two slammed into his forehead and cheek. He spiraled to the ground and the badge tumbled out of his convulsing fingers.

Chu felt time slow down as the badge flipped end over end on the floor. He saw the insignia of the NYPD reflected in the overhead light. As he got closer, he made out the word Detective in bold capital letters. He tried to make out the numbers at the bottom of the badge, but the shadow looming over him blocked his light and got his attention.

Chu looked up in time to see an ice pick bearing down on him. He couldn't see his attacker, but whoever it was burst out of one of the other rooms, leaped over the dead cop and tried to drive the steel tip into Chu's eye.

Instinct brought Chu's hands up to protect his face and throat. He felt the pick stab into the barrel of the SIG. He could have held onto the weapon if he maintained his two handed grip, but one hand still held the spare magazine. The sudden ferocity of the attack weakened his focus. The gun tumbled to the ground and the Fuk Ching slammed into Chu forcing him back into the wall.

Chu's body understood the unfolding sequence of events. He lived through too many real and simulated knife attacks to be surprised by the technique. The gangster would keep his head buried in Chu's chest with their bodies close together and Chu's back trapped against the wall. He would thrust low with the ice pick, driving the point up into Chu's stomach and kidneys from a place Chu couldn't see or defend. Once his kidney ruptured, his legs would give out and his ability to fight would be reduced to zero. Chu understood and appreciated the technique before his back hit the wall and he moved before the first thrust landed.

He dropped his elbow and his weight down and to the right. He felt the steel spike bite into the loose fabric of his jacket sleeve as he twisted his body. The gangster focused his energy in pulling the pick out to stab again, ignoring his footwork as Chu spun him into the wall.

He was able to wrench the weapon out of Chu's clothing, but he raised his head too high. Chu torqued his body behind his elbow, whipping the pointed bone across the man's jaw and forcing the back of his head into the wall with the crack of damaged bone.

The gangster tried to stab again, but his body acted without the direction of his mind. His attack was clumsy, glancing off Chu's raised arm. Chu caught the back of the man's head with both hands and rammed a knee just above his belt. The first blow lifted the man off the ground with a desperate gasp of air. The second knee sent spurts of blood from his nose as the gangster collapsed to the ground.

Chu whirled around to face a new threat and found Trent aiming his weapon in the general direction of his death match. Diving to the ground was his first instinct, but he held himself together long enough to realize Trent only planned to fire if he had a clear shot during the fight. Without a word, Trent motioned for Chu to recover his gun.

Chu picked up and reloaded his SIG, wondering if they could get out of the Red Crane before something else could go wrong.

Then he heard a woman scream on the first floor.

## Chapter Thirteen: Body over Mind

Chu burst through the door after Trent, covering the right side of the room while his partner covered the left. The restaurant was empty, except for the three women who cowered in the small space behind the cash register. Most of the chairs had been flipped over onto the tables, but whatever commotion brought about the scream toppled two of the chairs onto the floor. The spokes on the back of the chair cast shadows over the women like the bars on a cell.

Chu kept his body low and his gun pointed away from the frightened women. He needed to cover the front door while Trent checked their extraction route, but he didn't want to make them feel any more threatened than they already did.

The gesture felt hollow somehow. The two girls weren't down here to clean up the restaurant. The cooking and cleaning staff already went home. They were here to service the late night customers looking for little institutionalized rape in the middle of the night. One of them could have been the girl he saw stumble back into the restaurant during his original stakeout. They could be here waiting to be abused by cops like the one he shot upstairs. With all they suffered through, the idea of making them feel better by not aiming a gun in their direction didn't mean much.

The third woman was smaller, older and fearless. She positioned herself between Chu and the young girls, willing to sacrifice her own body to protect them. The image reminded Chu of his mother. How many times had she used her body to shield him from his father's abuse? How many times did she look death in the eye and face the monster to save her son? Chu blinked back a tear thinking about all the monsters this woman must have faced to keep these girls safe.

But the image he projected on her didn't make any sense either. If the old woman worked at the Red Crane, she was just as much a part of the Fuk Ching as the bald thugs in BMWs. She saw the way the girls were treated. She knew what happened to them every night. She might be just as responsible for the slavery in this house as the cop with the belt or the gangster with the ice pick.

Was she the madam? Did she replace Ah Kay as the head of this slave house? How could she do that? How could any woman see the suffering other women bear at the hands of men and decide to participate in the process? What would drive a woman to throw other women to the wolves? Sunny Chu would do anything to protect him. What would his life be like if he were born to a woman like this? Would he even have a life at all? Chu shook his head in denial. He couldn't believe his mother could be anything like the witch who began pointing a twelve gauge in his direction.

The shotgun couldn't have been real. It was like the thought of women selling women or Baker's family running a slave house or armies of men dying to impress a single woman. It all felt like a horrible mistake. Chu wanted to understand. He wanted to figure it all out, but he couldn't think straight. The barrel of the gun kept moving toward him and the world made less sense as he looked into the old woman's dark eyes.

The bark of a suppressed pistol brought Chu back to reality. A third dark eye grew out of the old woman's forehead and began oozing blood. She fell back between the younger girls who could only cringe and wait for the bullets meant to kill them.

But no more bullets came. Chu only saw his own pistol raised up in its ready position after several rapid blinks. He didn't remember firing, but the familiar kick of recoil resonated in his limbs. Before he could consider what he'd done, he heard two soft taps on the wall behind him; Trent's signal that the extraction route was clear. Chu turned on the balls of his feet and ran into the kitchen without looking back at the two girls cradling the dead madam between them.

The cool night air hit his skin in sharp contrast to the anxious heat of close combat. The smell of fresh garbage invaded his nose like a physical blow. The sensations pushed him to run out of the alley, but Chu took his time. The steps of the extraction couldn't be rushed. One false step here and the whole op would blow up in their faces.

Before Chu reached his silly electric bike, he removed the suppressor from his SIG and stuffed each piece into place in the holster under his jacket. The bandana came down and the hat came off before he started up the bike. The helmet and safety vest went back on, covering both the sweat on his head and the belt holding the snake cam. He pulled out of the alley at the same speed he went into it, thankful the little cycle didn't give him the option to go too fast and attract attention.

Chu didn't see Trent on the sidewalk or the street. He expected nothing less. Trent broke right when Chu took a left out the back door and he would initiate his own extraction, leaving the operational area under separate and plausible means. By the time the sun came up, Trent would be out of the city, to a place Chu couldn't identify if he were caught. Chu already decided he would ditch the bike in West Chelsea and catch the first bus to Philly from the Port Authority. Neither man would see or contact each other, or come back to New York City, until Baker gave them the all clear.

## Chapter Fourteen: All Clear

"So did you guys hear about the thing down in Chinatown? The papers are calling it the Red Crane Massacre."

Baker insisted on having their unofficial debriefing at a club called the Press Room. Perched on top of a boutique hotel west of Times Square, the place had sweeping views of midtown Manhattan, the Hudson River, and Jersey City on the other side. On this particular Friday night, the club also had a throng of out of town twenty somethings, European pleasure seekers and hustlers of the six figure variety. They couldn't make any direct reference to the Red Crane op, so Baker played the game of innocent innuendo while they sipped their Angel's Envy.

"How many bodies did they find in there?" Trent grinned when he asked the question, but his eyes scanned the people around them for possible eavesdroppers.

"Six, not counting the old lady and the cop."

"You've got to be pretty cold blooded to cut down a little old lady." Trent's smile grew to an annoying size when he looked back at Chu.

The old lady killer shrugged and took a long sip. "You've got to be even more fucked up to live the life she did. Live by the sword, die by the sword."

"True story." Trent took a sip and the three men were quiet for a while. Perhaps each of them thought about their own violent lives and the possibility of dying just as cold and quick as their victims. Chu didn't speak again until the waitress brought another round and walked away from the table.

"So who else did they find in the building? What happened to them?"

"They were relocated to the Save Haven Children's Center in Queens. The cops say they rescued twenty seven girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty. The Commissioner is calling it a great day for the fight against human trafficking."

"The cops..." Chu sucked his teeth remembering the flabby slug and his detective badge "What do they know about fighting sex slavery?"

Baker shrugged. "From what I read, Detective Miller was given a hero's funeral for his role in busting the Fuk Ching."

"Was there any message in the papers of how Detective Miller got into the Red Crane and found the Fuk Ching?"

"The official report says he was following up a lead on an escalating turf war between rival Chinese gangs and died trying to rescue the girls."

"That's a shame." Trent said with more irony than sincerity.

Chu couldn't muster a response. There was too much bile in his throat. They needed the NYPD to take credit for the rescue and direct blame at a fictional gang to keep their involvement secret, but the idea of honoring a brutal john for saving sex slaves made him want to dig up the corpse and shoot it again.

"So we've got a new associate." Baker cut in to break Chu out of his imaginary violence. "She started out as a client, but she liked our work so much she's coming on as a consultant."

Trent laughed and pointed at Chu. "See? I told you it was a woman. We're the only dudes he hangs out with."

Baker raised his glass to toast them. "You boys should feel special, especially since you're not that cute."

Chu raised his glass to join Baker's. "It's good to know you're willing to let us help with the family business."

Baker shot his friend a knowing look at Trent's glass joined the toast.. "Good, because there's a lot more work we need to do."

Interlude: Justify My Love

Summer 2014

Ria Marlen looked wistful for the first time Nikki could remember. The beer and the story seemed to draw something out of her. "I saw those girls after they were rescued. Two of them were pregnant, three of them had STDs, and one killed herself within a week." Ria took a long pull from her beer bottle and stared off into the ocean. "All the rest of them needed, still need, psychiatric care, but overall they're doing all right. They're in a better place now, thanks to you." Ria looked at Warren with a warmth Nikki found sweet.

"I wanted to make it a win-win for everybody. The girls got out of the Red Crane and we got a partner." He smiled at Ria and took her hand. Ria looked away. Was she blushing? Nikki felt their kiss coming and was ready to encourage the tender moment when Rose opened her mouth to ruin everything.

"Saving a few kidnapped girls hardly justifies the time and resources of the operations we're talking about." The flush in Rose's cheeks might have come from alcohol or anger, but it gave her sand colored skin a bloody hue as she pointed towards the beach.

Nikki followed Rose's gesture and saw Hamilton and Harrison weren't on the beach any more. Her fingers curled around the arms of the chair with a force to make the rattan creak. Her eyes darted around the beach with nervous agitation. She had no reason to be afraid of the boys, but hearing stories of them reaching out of the darkness to cripple and kill was enough to make anyone nervous. Nikki didn't want to think about how they might react if they heard Rose's diatribe. Rose was too drunk to tone down the criticism of the killers who might be in hearing range.

"We spend hundreds of man hours in analysis and on the field. We've bent and broken enough laws to put us all behind bars for life, even if you ignore Detective Miller's death...."

Baker had no flush in his cheeks and only the smallest trace of malice in his voice. "If you ask any one of those girls, they'd say the price was completely justified."

Nikki thought about the things Smoke and Shadow did for Baker. The risks they took and the pain they suffered was justified. They fought to save lives. They protected people who couldn't fight for themselves. Nikki knew she had a part in their mission now. The thought of making a difference with them brought a smile to her lips.

"The real risk of these operations isn't worth the potential reward or the revenue stream, that's all I'm saying."

"And what about our little trip to the Nostromo?"

Rose hesitated for a moment, her anger and the liquor clouded her reaction time. She shook her head, both to disagree and shake out the cobwebs. "That's not the same thing at all..."

"What's the Nostromo?"

Baker sighed as he leaned back for another story. "One of the first pieces of actual intel from your contact Diego was a transaction secured by a rival slaving network in the Red Sea. Half a dozen girls were taken from a rich boarding school in Macau. We tracked them to a luxury yacht sailing from Abu Dhabi to Jiddah. We had a chance to put an intercept operation together which turned out to be very lucrative for the firm."

"So it was another win-win for everybody?"

Baker flashed Nikki an infectious smile. "That depends on your perspective."

Book Five: Last Man Standing

## Chapter One: Misplaced

Spring 2014

"No Samantha, I'm not saying I hate Chinese guys. I'm just saying your dad wants to keep us apart because I'm not a rich Chinese guy and that's bullshit."

Curtis Hudson held the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he dried his hands with a paper towel. The response on the other end of the phone had a shrill biting tone to it. Sam's voice broke into a higher octave when she got upset. Hudson thought she might reach pitches only a dog could hear at any moment.

"You don't understand. He's really traditional. He wants his son in law to be from a prominent family."

"A prominent Chinese family?"

"Yes Curtis, a prominent Chinese family. I told you this would happen. I knew what he would say when he found out about us. I know what he wants."

"What about you? What do you want?"

"I want to be with you Curtis. You know that. But it doesn't matter what I want."

Hudson stepped out of the head and caught his hand on the railing of the listing ship. Did he lose his balance because of the ocean or because he felt his life slipping away? "This is 2014, Sam. He can't tell you who you can and can't marry. If you want to be with me..."

"You don't understand. This isn't America or England. This is China. Don't try to change it. Just come and see me while we still have time. I..."

"I'm going to be there soon, but I need to finish this job. I can use the money to show your father..."

"You can't buy tradition with money, Curtis. He's not going to change his mind if you show up with a bag full of money."

"Money changes a lot of things, Sam."

"It won't change this. Just come and see me before it's too late."

Hudson felt the deck sway again as he soaked in the voice of his lady. His eyes drifted out into the ocean. He caught a glimpse of a cigarette boat speed through the dark water, cutting a sharp spray in its wake. Hudson needed a cigarette. He reached up to the chest pocket of his uniform searching for his Chunghwa's.

"We're supposed to dock in three days. Once the job is over, I'll get on the first plane back."

"You promise?" The childlike anticipation in her voice brought an image of Sam's smiling face to his mind. He felt himself smile in response.

"Promise. When I get there I'll take you back to Hengshan and we can work things out there."

"Ok. Dad will be out of town next week, but when he comes back, he wants to start the search for..."

"Don't worry about that now. Just pick out something to wear when I come see you, ok?" Hudson patted his pants pocket for his lighter.

"Ok Curtis. Stay safe. I love you."

"Love you too. Bye."

Hudson disconnected the call with the image of Samantha's smile still fresh in his mind. She was worth the bullshit. The odds weren't good for an army boy from Ohio living growing old with a Chinese socialite, but...

But where the fuck did he put his lighter? He checked his front and back pants pockets, the side pockets on his thighs, and the chest pockets too, but he couldn't find his lighter. His heart sank into his stomach. Sam gave him the lighter as an anniversary present. She even wrote a letter about the flame of their love or something. Hudson didn't remember the exact words of the letter, but he took the lighter everywhere. He had it just before he went into the head....

And gave it to Hicks. Now he remembered. He was just about to share a smoke with Hicks on the starboard deck when Sam called. He handed the lighter to his watch partner, went to the head for privacy and a quick bathroom break. The emotion of the conversation clouded his short term memory. Hudson strolled along the starboard with an unlit Chunghwa dangling from his lips.

His foot brushed against something small and hard before he reached Hicks' post. Hudson sucked his teeth and bent his knees. His gold lighter sat open, the fly wheel half submerged in ocean spray. Hudson snatched up his prize possession and whirled around looking for Hicks', ready to throw his ass overboard. He wasn't anywhere near his assigned position. Hudson punched the button on his shoulder mounted radio and snapped as he spoke.

"Hicks, what's your position? Over." Hudson bit his lip to prevent the tirade building up in his head to spill out into the radio. He wasn't afraid of confronting Hicks, but he didn't want the rest of the team in his business. Hudson was the rookie on the team. He knew from past experience where he stood in the dynamic of the squad. This might be a private operation, but everyone on the team served in Afghanistan or Iraq. The pay might be better, but the rules were still the same.

Hicks didn't answer. Hudson imagined him hiding in the dark somewhere, masturbating to the videos he kept on his phone. The man had no shame. They'd only been out on the Nostromo for a few days, but Hicks loved himself whenever he found the chance and he considered himself an expert in subtlety. Now he deserted his post after tossing away Hudson's special lighter. The rookie closed his eyes and gripped the railing to steady himself. He tried to put himself in Hick's shoes. Didn't he miss Samantha? Wouldn't he feel less stress if he followed Hick's example? Hudson chuckled to himself as he looked down at his palm, thinking about his woman.

Hudson stopped laughing when he noticed the blood on his hand.

When did he cut himself? He wiped his palm on his pants leg and looked for the cut. The blood was gone and he couldn't see any wound on his hand. So where did the blood come from? Hudson looked down at the railing and saw droplets of red staining the polished steel. He bent down and found the small pool of red right between his feet, right where Hicks stood guard. The blood and the discarded lighter suggested a more gristly explanation for Hicks' absence. He couldn't have fallen overboard, could he?

"Hicks, come in. Over." Hudson could hear the strain in his own voice now and it reminded him of Samantha's agitated voice. The response to his request snapped him back to reality.

"What the fuck is all the chatter about, Hudson?" Apone's voice jabbed at Hudson through the radio speaker.

"Sarge, I can't seem to find Hicks. I think there might be a problem."

Apone's bitter chuckle spoke volumes. "There's no problem, son. Hicks is probably just hiding somewhere so he can play with his dick. Now get the fuck back to your post and stop jabbering in my ear."

Hudson imagined Apone and the rest of the team laughing at his rookie anxiety, but he couldn't ignore the pool of blood on the deck. "Um, sir. I think we might have a man overboard. We might need to swing back around before we go too far to..."

"Hudson, we are on a timetable. The client wants his boat and his cargo delivered by the close of business on Friday. We are behind schedule as it is. I will not sacrifice my reputation or my commission because some jumpy fucking rookie thinks his bunk mate fell overboard. After Hicks blows his load and gets back to his post, let him explain to you the fine art of not falling the fuck off the boat. Are we clear?"

Hudson clenched his fist around his lighter and grit his teeth. "Clear, Sarge."

He shut off his radio and cursed Apone, Hicks and the whole fucking team. Apone was full of shit. He wasn't even a sergeant; he just made everyone call him that. He didn't know how to lead men. He didn't even bother to ask why Hudson thought Hicks went overboard. He just climbed up Hudson's ass to prove...

The engines on the Nostromo fell into an abrupt silence. The lights on the deck and in the state room went out without warning. Hudson only heard the hollow lapping of the waves against the hull before Apone went ape shit on the radio.

"Hudson! What the fuck are you doing? I thought I told you that under no circumstances did I want this boat stopped?"

Hudson responded without trying to conceal his confusion. "Sarge, I'm still on the starboard deck. I haven't left my post."

"Then who the hell told Bishop to stop?" Apone waited for a beat to let the captain of the ship respond to his furious question. No answer came.

"Bishop? Bishop, respond. Over." Captain Bishop didn't reply. Apone lost even more of his shit.

"Goddamn it. Vasquez, are you still fucking answering the com?"

"I'm right here, Sarge." Hudson usually got nervous when he heard the smoky toughness in Vasquez's voice. He was happy to hear her now. She could sort all this out and get Apone off his ass.

"Go meet Hudson at the bridge and get us moving again. And when you're finished there, find Hicks and cut his dick off. I've had enough shit from him tonight."

"I'm on it." Her voice suggested movement.

"On my way." Hudson moved forward on the deck as fast as he could. Vasquez was tough shit. Hudson didn't want to keep her waiting.

## Chapter Two: Lost at Sea

Hudson tried to think of an explanation for the sequence of events that didn't include a huge cluster fuck.

When he took this job, it sounded like easy money. Just protect a private yacht on a trip around the Arabian peninsula. Some sheik or sultan or whatever didn't want his expensive toy getting snatched up by pirates, so he hired a team of operators to baby sit. When Hudson heard what the sheik offered to pay, he leaped at the chance to join the team. The job screamed low risk, high reward. Erik Prince's new mercenary navy cleaned up most of the pirate activity. The only thing they had to worry about now was a Yemeni Coast Guard captain unwilling to take a bribe. The boat wasn't the sheik's only toy. He had other toys locked in the state room. Those toys had to be gagged and blindfolded. Those toys would create a problem if an official didn't take the money and turn a blind eye.

Hudson was ready for pirates and coast guards. He wasn't ready for missing teammates and stumbling around in the dark. He held his flashlight high and close to his head, but the uneven motion of running on the swaying boat made the beam jarring to follow. He held his other hand on his MP5 without knowing why. The team was on patrol and they did have an unknown situation, but he didn't need his weapon now. He needed Hicks to pop out of the shadows with a stupid guilty grin on his face. He needed the lights to come back on and the Nostromo's engines to kick into high gear. He needed to get back to Sam. Her smile was on his mind when he climbed the short flight of carpeted steps and reached the hatch to the bridge.

He pulled the lever and pushed, but something blocked the door from opening. Hudson tried to look through the port to signal to the men inside, but he didn't see anyone at the controls. The radar screen and navigation panels were dark. The wheel swayed back and forth. A limp wrist sat trapped in its bottom spoke.

Hudson craned his head to see whose hand was trapped in the wheel, but he couldn't lift himself high enough to get a good angle. He pulled the lever again, this time slamming his shoulder into the hatch to force it open. He put too much force into the blow and he tumbled onto the bridge as the steel door gave way. Hudson landed on his back and came face to face with the corpse of Captain Bishop.

Hudson had experience with death. He lost friends in raids against the Taliban. He saw bodies lying out in the streets of Fallujah. But Bishop's glassy brown eyes made him jump back and kick away with a yelp. The hole in his throat still pumped out spurts of black red blood. Hudson felt himself sitting in a lukewarm pool of the man's lost life.

"Shit!"

He staggered to his feet, slipping on the blood slick floor. He bumped into the body of the first mate and nearly fell face first into a new puddle of blood. Hudson threw his back against the control panel. He couldn't catch his breath. Then he coughed and the nauseating smell of released bowels filled his nostrils.

"Oh Shit!"

Apone's bark from the radio broke his cycle of cursing. "Vasquez, what's your status? Why aren't we moving? Over"

Hudson's grip on the call button slipped from the sweat and blood on his fingers, so he grabbed the device with both hands to respond. "We've got men down on the bridge. I repeat, we have casualties on the bridge!"

"What the fuck are you talking about, Hudson? What happened to Bishop?"

"He's dead. Rizzo's dead too. They're both dead."

"Fuck me running..." It only took a moment for Apone to get control of himself. "What happened, Hudson?"

"I don't...I don't know. They were dead when I got here, but the bodies are still warm."

"How did they die, son? Did you see anything?"

Hudson's eyes couldn't look away from the hole in Bishop's throat. "Small arms fire, one shot."

"And you didn't hear anything?"

"No...Negative."

Apone turned his attention from Hudson to the rest of the team. "Alright, ladies. We've got company. You know what that means. You are weapons free and authorized to fire at will. You see anybody on this boat you don't recognize, you send them to hell. You read me?"

A chorus of macho affirmatives came over the radio, but Hudson couldn't bring himself to answer. Maybe Apone noticed, because he tried to couch his next words in a confident but comforting tone.

"Ok. Hudson. I want you to secure the bridge and restart the engines. The navigation system will take over while we get the fucking rats off this ship. Are you ok with that, son?"

Hudson felt his head shaking. His fingers twitched so much he could hardly work the radio. "Sir. I don't know how to turn on the engines. I don't know how to steer a boat."

"Oh for the love of...Vasquez, link up with Hudson and get us going please. I don't want to be a sitting duck out here. We're going to finish this mission and we are going to finish it on time."

Vasquez didn't answer.

The air went out of the group's collective gung ho attitude. Apone lost his air of superiority. "Vasquez? What's your status? Marianna?"

Hudson listened to the dead air. His heart pounded like a jackhammer. His eyes bounced around in his head, looking for threats everywhere. HIs mind raced back to Afghanistan. He remembered feeling secure on patrol because he knew other support elements were there to help. HIs team needed support now. Hudson blinked sweat from his eyes as he talked into the radio.

"Sarge, do you want me to send out a distress signal? I can jump on the radio and..."

"Shut up rookie. What makes you think we have time to wait for help in the middle of the fucking ocean? And how are you going to explain the slaves down below, huh? You want to rot in a Yemeni jail? I sure don't. So we're going to put our big boy pants on and handle this ourselves. You hear me?"

Hudson shook his head. "Yes, sarge."

"Alright then. Here's what we're gonna do. Gorman and Burke, I want you to sweep the main cabin and link up with Hudson on the bridge. I'm going below to handle the girls. Ripley, meet me down there. Hudson, I want you to secure the bridge and provide over watch for the team heading your way. You see anybody, if you even think you see somebody. You fucking waste them. It's time to earn your pay, boy. You ready?"

Hudson could feel tears forming in the corner of his eye. "Yes, sir."

## Chapter Three: Divide and Conquer

Hudson felt all his senses expand in all directions. He heard heavy breathing in every breeze coming off the water. He saw movement in every shadow and he felt fear crawling along his skin. He stopped breathing in a desperate attempt to hear better and avoid attracting attention. But there was no one with him besides the corpses of Bishop and Gorman. Hudson crouched in the open doorway of the bridge and tried to imagine what they were facing.

The scene played itself out in his head. Whoever invaded the Nostromo slipped onto the ship after he went to the head. They surprised Hicks and tossed him into the ocean. Maybe they slit his throat first to make sure he didn't scream. By the time Hudson got back to his position, they'd already reached the bridge. Bishop kept the door unlocked. Life on the Nostromo had been laid back for both the mercenaries and the crew. Everyone got along and everyone did their job. Bishop had no reason to lock himself on the bridge. He thought the seven armed men and miles of ocean could keep him safe. Now the last of his blood trickled out of the hole in his neck...

Hudson looked away from the corpse to refocus his attention on what happened. The door had been blocked when he got there. Whoever came in couldn't have wedged the body against the door and then left the bridge the same way. Maybe he never left. Maybe he was still on the bridge.

Hudson whirled around with a gasp, expecting to see a killer standing behind him. But he stood alone in the room, except for the dead bodies. He did see the hatch leading below decks. The door sat open, taunting him like a hole to hell. Hudson kicked the door closed and secured the lock. He began to understand how the killers thought and moved. The next step lay in anticipating what they would do next and beating them to the punch.

Vasquez had been assigned to guard the engine room. She would have come from below decks. Her path put her in direct contact with the killers. How many were there? Did she get a chance to see them? She didn't get to fire a shot. Everyone would have heard it. No, Vasquez died in the dark without ever seeing the face of her killers.

But how many of them were on the boat? Was it a whole fire team? Was it the SEALs? Hudson met a couple of those guys on his tour. They thought they could go anywhere, do anything and take on anybody. Maybe they invaded the Nostromo. But why? Was it for the girls? Why would the Navy send its best badasses to rescue a set of girls? Who were they?

A flicker of light flashed in Hudson's peripheral vision, ending his speculation. He shifted in his crouch and adjusted his grip on his MP5. The light became a steady beam on the far end of the main cabin. Then another flashlight appeared on the opposite site. Hudson made out the silhouettes of Gorman and Burke. They scanned their surroundings with professionalism and purpose. With their weapons held in a ready position on their shoulders, they took measured and cautious steps in the darkness towards him.

About twenty feet separated the two operators. They split the room in half so they could cover every corner with gunfire. Hudson brought his own stock up to his shoulder, ready to provide cover and cut down anyone unlucky enough to be in the crossfire. SEAL team or not, they weren't immune to bullets. Hudson took a deep breath and prepared himself for contact.

What Hudson saw next had to be an optical illusion, or a trick of his overstressed mind. Burke slid behind one of the big redwood support pillars halfway between the aft and the bridge. Gorman scanned his light behind a leather sofa on the opposite side. The two men moved in a synchronized parallel pattern. Their cadence was designed to prevent anyone slipping past them. Gorman completed his sweep and continued on his path to Hudson. Burke didn't move with him. He never emerged from behind the pillar. Burke vanished into the darkness.

The feeling drained out of Hudson's fingers. His lip started to tremble. He wanted to fire, but he didn't know where to shoot. He didn't want to hit Burke, but part of him knew it was too late to worry about that. If he didn't do something, it would be too late for him too. He tried to wave his arm to Gorman, to get his attention without making noise. Hudson wanted to believe they could work together and triangulate fire on the right target.

Gorman already knew what to do. He spun on the balls of his feet, oriented his barrel to Burke's last position, and collapsed like a house of cards.

Hudson thought he heard two sharp snaps cut through the silence before Gorman dropped. He might have seen the head snap back and brain explode from the back of his head, but everything moved too fast. Hudson slammed shut the hatch, locked it and cowered in the corner as if he'd seen a monster.

But it was worse than a monster. He didn't see anything. Men just kept dying around him. Tough, experienced, well-armed operators disappeared or dropped without warning. There was no one to fight against and no one to shoot. It felt just like those long gun battles he lived through in the mountains, but those enemies had been far away. These enemies sat in the same room. They were close enough to touch you without being seen or heard. Hudson imagined them creeping towards the bridge. He thought about unlocking the hatch and running below, but what good would that do? His eyes caught sight of the radio and knew it was his only chance. He reached for it, forgetting about Apone and explaining the slaves and everything except finding a way off this boat and getting back to Sam.

Apone's hiss over the radio stopped his hand in mid-motion.

## Chapter Four: Element of Surprise

"Ripley? Burke? Gorman? Report!"

"They're gone." Hudson heard the despair in his own voice. The sound made him weak. "They're all gone, man. We're fucked."

"Hudson? Where the fuck are you?"

"I'm fucked, Apone. Just like you."

"Secure your shit, rookie. We can handle this..."

"Haven't you been paying attention? All your men are gone. Your ship is dead in the water. They're still out there somewhere. It's over. We have to send out an SOS. We have to get help."

"You listen to me, you little shit! You are not going to give up on me. You're in my squad and this is my ship. You are going to get on your feet and make your way to the state room. I'll meet you halfway and we'll catch this son of a bitch between us and..."

"You don't fucking get it, do you? The team on your fucking boat wiped out everyone but us. What makes you think we can...?"

"It's not a team, you stupid ass. If it was a team they would have hit us from all sides at once, shock and awe with no chance to retaliate. He's picking us off one by one because there's only one man out there, maybe two. We catch him in a vice between us and..."

The memory of Burke and Gorman trying to out maneuver their killer brought tears to Hudson's eyes as he shook his head. "Only one man? Only? No. Fuck that. Fuck you. I'm getting on the radio. I'm calling for help. I'm not going out there to die with you."

Apone went into another tirade, but Hudson couldn't hear what he said. His ranting became just another noise competing with the pounding in his chest, the roar of blood in his ears and the raspy wheezing of his breath. This was a special kind of fear. He felt it during his first firefight in Jalalabad. But now he was alone. He wouldn't survive like this. He had to get help. He didn't think about the sheik, or slaves, or a prison. He just picked up the receiver of the ship's radio and felt it fall apart in his hands.

Hudson's eyes went wide as the cable connecting the receiver to the radio dangled like a noose in his clenched fist. The cable didn't connect the receiver to the radio anymore. Someone cut it. The same someone who cut down everyone on the ship. Hudson threw the useless piece of plastic across the room with a curse. A wave of nausea rolled through his stomach and threatened to explode from his mouth. Hudson gripped the edge of the console to steady himself. Then the noise from Apone's voice stopped short. Silence replaced the screams. Hudson knew Apone was dead and he was alone.

Tears fell from his eyes when he realized he would never see Samantha again. At least he got to talk to her one last time and hear her smile over the phone. He said 'I love you' and he got to hear her say it too. Why not call her now? What else could be more important? He took out his phone and wiped the blood from the screen with his sleeve. He still had a signal. Why not spend the last few minutes with the one person who made him happy? The image of her smile caused more tears. He wanted to hear her smile again.

But what could he possibly say to her? Could he call her and say he was waiting to die? Would her last memory of him be a tear soaked voice coughing out his last pitiful whimpers before someone put a bullet in the back of his head? Or would they make it last longer and force Sam to listen to him grovel and beg for his life?

No. These men were professionals. They wouldn't waste time with torture for its own sake. They were probably prepping the girls for extract right now. They'd be down in the state room focusing on their mission. They wouldn't forget about Hudson, but they saw him bolt the door shut. They knew he was too scared to threaten them. Either they would ignore him and leave him to drift out into the ocean alone, or they'd finish him off in a final sweep before they moved the girls.

Hudson knew how they thought. He met men like them. He served in the same military. He knew what they did to get on board and he knew what they would do to extract. He could use their tactics against them. He could turn the tables and fucking kill them. If Apone was right, there were only two men. They couldn't free the girls and guard the door at the same time. He could sneak up on them. He could kill them and those bitches they wanted so bad. When their cigarette boat came back for them he could hijack it. He could make the driver take him to shore and then kill him too. He'd have to figure out a way to get back to the real world, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. The important thing now was to attack while he still had the element of surprise.

He put away his phone and worked the slide of his MP5 to ensure a round was loaded. He turned off his flashlight, allowing his eyes to adjust to the faint glow of moonlight coming through the port. He'd be better off with night vision goggles, but he didn't waste time worrying about what he didn't have. He unlocked the door to the engine room and slid the barrel of his weapon into the darkness ahead of him. The red emergency lights gave the hold a hellish glow, but Hudson pushed himself down the stairs before fear and doubt made him change his mind.

## Chapter Five: Hail Mary

Hudson pressed his back against the bulkhead as soon as his feet hit the bottom of the stairwell ladder. He scanned left and right with the muzzle of his weapon, looking for any type of movement in the shadows. He slid sideways across the wall like a crab, unwilling to expose his back to any potential attack. He raised and lowered the gun to aim at every angle a threat could approach. Hudson forced himself not to run. He forced himself to breathe. He tried to put one foot in front of the other and keep his noise to a minimum.

He recognized the boot sticking out from a shadow in front of him. He wore the same boot a couple of sizes bigger. He stopped to take a long look into Vasquez's empty eyes. Hudson couldn't see where she'd been shot, but her corpse lay in a wide pool of blood. He stepped around her to avoid leaving a trail of bloody footprints, then he remembered how much blood he walked through on the bridge. Anyone following behind him with a light would know exactly where he was headed. Well, he couldn't change that now, so he didn't try. He pressed on another twenty feet with his back to the wall before he reached the stairwell leading up to the stateroom.

Ripley lay face down at the bottom of the stairs. Two neat holes in the base of her spine and behind her heart bloomed with an aura of wet black. Her rifle, like Vasquez's, sat by her side. Whoever killed her didn't see the need to take their guns. What would be the point? He, or they, had suppressed weapons, probably custom jobs they fired day in and day out and knew as well as they knew themselves. They came up behind their victims and fired two slugs at point blank range. Ripley and Vasquez died without feeling it or even knowing it was happening. Hudson wanted the killers to die the same way. He wasn't going to let his squad go down like a group of amateurs. They brought him into their group. They welcomed him and took care of him. He wasn't going to just let them die in the shadows. Hudson crept up the carpeted stairwell to the dimly lit corridor outside the stateroom.

The door to the plush bedroom was held open by Apone's corpse. He sat at an odd angle, his head and neck wedged near the door frame in a painful position. But Sarge didn't feel any pain anymore. His eyes bulged out of his head in the same angry grimace Hudson came to hate, but he didn't have a nose or mouth to complete the facial expression. The bottom part of his face exploded onto the carpet when the killer got behind him and put a bullet in the back of his neck. Hudson always wanted a way to shut Apone's mouth. He missed the growling voice now. He needed it to block out the smell of gun smoke and the whimpering in his head.

The confused and helpless cries of the women held inside the bedroom didn't make sense to Hudson. Why were they still here? And where were the killers who came to free them? No one would board a luxury yacht, kill the crew and the security team, and then abandon ship without the most expensive cargo, right? So where the fuck did they go? Were they on the upper deck looking for him? Did they already find their way into the bridge? Was someone behind him following his bloody footprints? Hudson swung his muzzle back and down the stairs behind him, but no one emerged from the darkness. He couldn't be sure where the killers were, but they weren't here.

Hudson pointed his barrel back into the stateroom. The slender arms of the six slaves drank in the glow of the moonlight. The shackles binding them to the column glistened in the half light. All the girls were naked from the waist down. They curled and crossed their legs in a fearful attempt to keep him away. But Hudson didn't want these bitches. He wanted Sam. If he couldn't have his woman, no one would get these women.

He stepped over Apone's body and aimed his MP5 at them with a growl. He had a new plan now. He'd shoot a couple of these whores to get the killer's attention. The sound of the bullets and the screams of the living girls would get them to come running. Hudson would cut them down when they stepped through the door. If they were the cautious killers he imagined them to be, he could still use the girls as a negotiating chip to...

The movement on Hudson's right didn't register in his conscious mind. He didn't see it or hear it. He sensed it in the same way he learned to sense an IED in the road to Jalalabad or the incoming crack of a sniper rifle. Hudson took a step to orient his body towards the unseen threat and squeezed the trigger of his weapon.

The wrong sound came out of his gun. Hudson wanted to hear the angry bark of his SMG and see the explosive muzzle flash light up the room to reveal his target. He wanted to feel the hot casings bounce off his arms and smell the tang of cordite fill the room.

Hudson heard the angry spit of a suppressor. His world cantered until the ceiling came into view and wet carpet pressed against his cheek. He couldn't feel his arms, but he did see his weapon slide out of his hand when a black boot kicked it away. Hudson saw a figure step over him towards the girls, but his vision began to blur around the edges.

"Sideline, this is visitor. The game is over. Final score: Visitor eight, home team zero. Over."

Hudson's military mind sorted through the jargon while his blood soaked into the carpet. The voice of the killer didn't fit. He spoke with a soft, gentle rhythm Hudson found soothing even as it got harder to hear. The response on the other end sounded cold and professional by contrast."

"Good game, visitor, but why did we need to go to overtime? Over."

"The home team rallied their defense and threw up a Hail Mary. I had to wait to see where it came down."

"Understood. How did the crowd respond?"

"The end of the game left them stressed, but I think they're ready to go home with this victory."

"Roger that. Head to the parking lot and we can get everybody home for the post game show."

"Understood. I'll see you at the after party."

Hudson couldn't feel his legs. His mouth filled with something thick but he couldn't swallow. But his ears still worked. His mind registered the conversation as he lay dying. He'd miss parties, and football. Most of all, he was going to miss Sam. He wondered if she would wonder what happened to him or if she'd just forget him and follow her father's wishes.

The operator's soft voice reached Hudson's fading hearing although the words weren't directed at him. "Ladies, ladies, I know some of you can't understand me, but everything's going to be ok. My name is Chu, and I'm here to bring you home."

Hudson heard the Chinese name and coughed up blood trying to laugh at the irony. He died hating Chinese men for reasons that had nothing and everything to do with Samantha's smile.

Interlude: Risk Benefit Analysis

"You can't sit there and compare the marginal success of a few saved girls to the damage your operations have caused. You can't ignore the suffering we create every time you send them out into the field."

Rose was in full angry drunk mode now, slurring her words and waving her arms around like a puppet with tangled strings. Baker watched her with amusement, but he continued to engage her in calm rational conversation as if she could still understand a logical argument.

"We're taking risks to help women no one else will help, women who can't help themselves. We're making progress and we're being compensated well. It seems like the success is worth the potential risk, don't you?"

"No. A few girls here or there doesn't justify what happened in Barmeja. You bring up the successful ops, but what about the village? Was that worth the risk?"

"What happened in Barmeja?" Nikki tried to talk to Baker and ignore Rose, but the drunk refused to be marginalized.

"Yeah, tell her that story. Tell her what we've really been doing all these months."

"Tell us anything that will make this bitch shut up." Ria drained her fourth or fifth Corona and shot Rose a murderous glare. Baker, as always, remained calm as he responded.

"After you recruited Diego Velazquez, we began to get intel on the trade routes for Los Zetas human trafficking. I sent Trent in to verify the information and he found himself in a tight spot..."

Book Six: The Rules of Engagement

## Chapter One: In Enemy Territory

Summer 2014

Trent froze when a pair of bright yellow headlights bounced through the darkness on the road beyond the beach. The glow bathed the sand and the rolling waves in a fleeting contrast of light and shadow. Staying submerged under the surf for a few extra moments felt like a small price to pay. The ocean around Barmeja had a warmth that made this insertion better than most. He could stay in the water a few extra moments if it helped him save his life.

When the red tail lights vanished around a bend in the road, Trent emerged from the water. He kept his body crouched low to the sand and his M4 held high on his shoulder. The SCUBA gear on his back and the tubes connecting it to his mask and regulator made his silhouette resemble a sea creature invading the beach. Trent dropped to his belly near an outcropping of seaweed covered stone and waited, but no one on Barmeja appeared to notice his invasion.

He used Neoprene covered fingers to activate his head gear. The light enhancing goggles bathed his vision in radar green, revealing a narrow expanse of rough beach, the single lane dirt trail of a road and the dense forest beyond it. The scene conformed to the satellite images Trent studied before his insertion. Leaves rustled and branches swayed in the sea breeze, but Trent didn't see any movement to indicate a guard post or sniper nest. Baker's intelligence reports and his satellite images didn't show any fixed positions either, but Trent needed to be sure. A lot of men walked into ambushes based on bad sat data. Trent didn't plan on making himself a casualty of the remote intelligence experts.

So he scanned the road again, looking for the sudden movement or out of place detail a potential threat might create. He didn't see any problems. He switched the optical array on his head gear to infrared. The world went black again. No warm bodies or other heat sources popped up as he passed through his third scan. Trent knew of ways a sentry team could use to evade thermal scans, but he couldn't sit here until sunrise looking for trouble. At some point, he'd have to leave the safety of the shore and go looking for it.

He slipped a phone sized GPS out of his web belt and held his hand over the screen to check his location. According to the digital signal, he'd arrived at the insertion point plus or minus about two hundred yards. The results weren't good enough for SEAL qualification but reality had a way of being more forgiving than the dive masters. Trent craned his neck up to take in the stars. A thick cover of clouds obscured all celestial light. He landed in the right spot, avoided contact and had the cover of darkness for his movements. Trent lifted himself off the sand and went to work.

He removed and secured his SCUBA gear with slow efficient movements. The body memory of dozens of amphibious night insertions gave him the ability to handle his equipment in the dark, but he kept the night vision on as an extra precaution. When he was ready to travel on dry land, he checked all the gear on his person, making sure he didn't lose anything during his swim and making sure everything would stay secure as he moved. Then he wrapped the SCUBA equipment in a seaweed covered camo bag, positioned it near the rocks and covered it in loose seaweed as additional concealment. He made one last check on his weapon, camera and other gear before turning towards the road.

Then he spotted the foot patrol coming towards him on the beach.

The two sentries walked close to the road, about a hundred and fifty feet from his position. The beams of their flashlights wandered in random arcs on the road and the beach. Instead of focusing on their patrol, they carried on a loud conversation in gruff, aggressive Spanish. They seemed too far away to see him and they sounded too distracted to notice him, but Trent didn't take any chances. He wasn't willing to face the AK-47's slung over their shoulders. If either of them got off a shot, the sound could carry for miles. Trent couldn't afford to kick over a hornet's nest, so he pulled out his rifle, remained prone, and kept quiet. Only his eyes moved as he tracked the path of his unwanted guests.

The sentries didn't shine their lights near Trent's rocks as they passed in front of him. They seemed content to stick close to the road, grumble at each other and keep their flashlights focused in front of them. Trent felt his muscles tense, waiting for the moment they might turn and fire on him in a counter ambush, but the sudden violence never came. After a few breathless seconds, the sentries had their backs to him. One of them even barked out a gruff laugh as they continued into the darkness.

Trent felt a surge of adrenaline when he saw the opportunity for surprise. Under different circumstances, he'd slip behind these men and take them down with point blank shots to the back of the head. He saw himself slither up behind his victims and ending their lives in mid-sentence. He could drag them to the rocks. Their bodies wouldn't be found until long after he was gone. But Baker wanted zero contact tonight; no witnesses, no casualties and no corpses. Trent clenched his jaw and ignored the invitation to violence. The sentries ambled along the beach as Trent pulled himself up to a low crouch and moved toward the tree line.

## Chapter Two: Chain of Violence

Trent's pattern through the thick underbrush maximized his awareness and minimized his impact on his surroundings. He kept still, reaching out with his eyes, ears, nose and subconscious instinct in an attempt to detect any hostile intent in the area. He searched for everything from a guerilla with a machine gun to a puma stalking its next kill. He emerged from his hiding spot only when the natural sounds and shapes of the forest told him it was safe to move.

He melted deeper into the woods. He kept his stance low to reduce his size as a target. He stepped with light pressure to avoid magnifying the noise his boots made on the blanket of wet leaves covering the ground. He left branches undisturbed as he weaved among the trees. He stayed close to the larger trunks for cover, in case an unseen enemy popped up and started shooting. The stealth in his stride continued for a few steps and then Trent froze behind new cover, absorbing his surroundings again to repeat the process.

Trent prowled this remote area for two hours trying to discover its secrets. He looked for the footpaths the slave traders might use to drag their victims away from the beach. He listened for the cries of beaten women and the smell of broken bodies. He tried to find a place hidden from both the distant eyes of satellites and the uninterested authority of the Mexican Navy. If Los Zetas hid a slave warehouse in Barmeja, it was Trent's job to find it.

But maybe the slave pit didn't exist. The intel for this mission came from an unreliable source acting under duress. No official records existed in the Mexican police files. No one in the nearby village would talk about what happened out here. The slave pit could just be one man's delusion. Maybe there was no central spot where slaves from Africa, South America and Eastern Europe would find themselves cataloged and stored until Los Zetas shipped them to their final destinations. Maybe Trent risked his life for an elaborate lie told by a bitter man with a score to settle. It wouldn't be the first time. Countries invaded each other and thousands of people could die because of one man's lie. Trent continued to hunt in the shadows. He tried to find what couldn't be found and avoid wasting anyone's life, especially his own.

After another half hour in the pitch black forest, the sound of a broken woman led Trent to his target. He heard her whimpers over the midnight breeze and the harsh grunts of an aggressive Spanish male. Bouncing behind one tree and moving to the next, Trent approached the sound with his M4 held high and ready. In the radar green of his night vision, he saw them.

One small man with his back to Trent and his pants around his knees crouched over an even smaller girl with bare, frail legs pulled open and squirming in futile protest. The rapist had his victim lying on her back. The wet blanket of leaves clung to her dirty legs. He thrust into her with all the violence of a man who hated women. Who else buys and sells slaves? What other type of animal could be so deserving of a quick stab in the kidneys? Trent slid his weapon down to the secure position on his back. When his hand came up again, it held his knife.

Trent took silent steps towards his target, evaluating him and his surroundings as he moved. The rapist had his back exposed. He showed no signs of awareness. Trent recognized the behavior. Most men lost their sense of space and security during sex. This monster followed the familiar pattern. His AK-47 was within reach. He had a back-up pistol holstered to his belt. But weapons have no use without the awareness and ability to use them. Trent's knife held the clear advantage against an unsuspecting foe.

Only a few feet separated the men when the memory of his mission made him hesitate. He wasn't here to save a slave girl from rape. He needed to find the slave pit or prove it doesn't exist. He couldn't leave any witnesses, casualties or corpses. The fate of hundreds of women and children might come down to his ability to get in and out unseen. This wasn't about one girl. He had to consider the bigger picture.

Trent stood close enough to smell their sex mixing with the wet leaves. The rapist's grunts clashed with the victim's crying to create a terrible assault on Trent's ears. He could see the girl's matted hair over the rapist's shoulder. The long dark strands stuck to her face and hid her tears. She was a teenager, maybe a year younger than Trent's daughter. The thought of his own lost child pulled him closer to them. The idea of this man raping Jessica became bigger than a mission for a target he couldn't find.

But how many men used war as a pretense to attack women? In the whole history of warfare, how many days and nights went by without a girl being attacked, abused or killed by soldiers of all types on either sides of a conflict? Trent remembered the blood on his own hands and the women who died because of him. He saw the young girl who died naked and on her knees the night he murdered a gang lord. The look in Summer Rain's eye when he shot her couldn't be blamed on someone else's gun. Saving this girl wouldn't change anything for the women who suffered during war and it couldn't wash away Trent's combat crimes either.

But he couldn't bring himself to slink back into the shadows. In one smooth and familiar motion, Trent cupped a gloved hand over the rapist's mouth and yanked his head back. At the same time, he thrust forward and up with his hips, adding power to his stab. Trent drove the point of his knife through the loose uniform shirt, past the soft skin of the back, under the floating ribs and into the vulnerable kidney. For a moment, the three of them existed in a bizarre chain of violence. The rapist forced his weapon inside the girl and Trent forced his weapon inside the rapist. Then the blood began to flow. The rapist's legs became useless. The small man fell out of his victim and collapsed on Trent's chest with a scream dying in his mouth. Trent eased his fresh corpse to the leafy blanket of the forest floor without a sound. Then slit the rapist's throat with all the ceremony of stepping on a cockroach.

Trent wondered what the girl saw when she looked up at him. Were her eyes closed during the rape? Did she block out the horror by trying not to look at it? If she did, then how long did it take her to realize her rapist was dead and not just pulling out of her for some new brutality? When her torturer hit the ground, what did she see? Trent's matte black uniform, black skin covered by blacker charcoal and the bulbous extra set of mechanical eyes on top of his head must have created the image of a demon looming over her. His black bladed knife still dripping with the rapist's blood might have looked like the fang of a snake coming for her flesh too. Trent expected her to be scared out of her mind. He knew she would scream. So he dove on top of her and clamped his hand down over her mouth.

The girl didn't scream and she didn't struggle. Between the wild strands of dark hair covering her face, her eyes bulged wide from shock and terror. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest Trent imagined he could feel it in his own body. But she didn't scream. Maybe she couldn't scream anymore.

Trent held a finger up to his mouth, just to be sure. Her only response came in a frantic twitching in her limbs, a natural byproduct of her trauma. He scanned the area with his eyes, ears and predator's mind to sense other threats. It didn't make sense for the rapist to be out here alone. The slave pit and its guards might be close. Some patrol vehicle could be parked near them.

Trent heard a gruff laugh barked in the darkness. The rapist had friends, maybe the same men Trent saw patrolling on the beach. He didn't deal with them before, but sooner or later they would come looking for their partner. He couldn't let them find the corpse and raise an alarm. Trent clenched his jaw and accepted the invitation to violence.

He looked back into the victim's eyes and continued to hold his finger over his mouth. She nodded, as if understanding both his demands on her and his intentions for the sentries. She pointed in their direction and nodded along with Trent. He moved his hand away an inch. She didn't scream. Her tear stained face held its terrified expression and her arm quivered as she pointed, but she didn't scream. Trent held up his hand to tell her to stay put, then he crept towards the sounds of crass laughter.

## Chapter Three: Execution

Trent's intended victims stood around soaking in the afterglow of their gang rape.

He approached them from behind the glare of their floodlight to ensure his movements would be obscured. Two of them stood next to a surplus US military transport, smoking and laughing without a care in the world. One had his shirt open and his belt loose. Sweat glistened off his skinny fat skin in the shine of artificial light. Did he rape the girl first? Did they all plan to take turns with her before morning? What did they plan to do with her when their fun ended? Would they throw her back into the pit or just slit her throat and leave her in the bushes? Trent planned to discard their bodies in the forest, but he couldn't just leap out and start shooting.

He scanned the area to formulate a plan. The truck and the floodlight sat in the center of what looked like a crude power station. Mobile generators hummed beneath camo nets suspended in the branches above his head. Black cables snaked across the ground in several directions like the strands of wet hair on the girl's face. Trent couldn't see a pattern at first, but he soon realized all the cables headed in the same direction. A small structure, similar to an outhouse, sat about thirty feet away and swallowed up all the cables through a hole in its closed door.

But an outhouse didn't need seven generators to power it. Did the door lead to something else? Maybe the generators powered lights and air filtration in a tunnel. It made sense. The Vietcong used tunnels to avoid and ambush Marines in Vietnam. Hamas used tunnels to hide and attack Israeli positions in the West Bank. Why couldn't Los Zetas use tunnels to hide and warehouse their slaves? It would explain why the structure couldn't be seen from the air and it would explain the generators in the middle of the forest. Maybe the slave pit wasn't a myth after all. Trent could record this location and finish his mission, but before he pulled out his camera, he slid the suppressed SIG from its holster.

His two targets weren't alone. A third man sat in the cab of the truck, nodding off after a long night of rape. Trent didn't see any other guards. These four must have been assigned to protect the generator, but they weren't serious about the job, since they spent their shift raping little girls. Their rifles lay impotent on top of the generators. They had nothing in place to secure the perimeter or protect their flanks. But why would they? Who would be stupid enough to attack them on their remote island in the middle of the night? Trent wrapped around the truck like a shadow until he stood close enough to see the stitching on the first guard's uniform.

The men stood facing each other. They continued to laugh and joke and mimic barbaric gyrations with their hips. Trent didn't understand their Spanish, but he knew what the content of their conversation. They spoke in the male language of sexual exaggeration. Trent's fingers curled a tighter grip around the pistol.

The victim with his back turned said something to make his friend roar with laughter. His head flew back. He had to lean against the truck to keep his balance. In the split second the skinny fat man took to look away, Trent burst out of the darkness.

He grabbed the first victim by the collar to hold him in place. The man froze in a split second of surprise, but he didn't get the chance to move or make a sound before Trent force the suppressor against his temple and pulled the trigger.

The subdued bark of the gun and the delicate spray of blood and brain pelting his chest got the attention of the skinny fat man. His laugh turned into a gasp. The cigarette fell from his mouth. He watched his faceless friend drop to his knees with disbelieving eyes. He looked past the corpse into the darkness of Trent's face. He moved his hands up to surrender or beg for his life. Trent ended him with a Mozambique drill. The first round blasted through the man's breast. The second shot landed in his throat. The final shot caught him in his chin and bounced his head off the side of the truck.

Other sounds came from the front of the truck now. Trent anticipated more opposition. The suppressor reduced the report from the gun, but couldn't silence it completely. His four shots made enough noise to rouse the sleeping rapist from his nap. A head poked out of the open truck window. The eyes were bleary and confused. The sight of two fresh corpses on the ground might have turned his confusion into terror, but he didn't live long enough for his brain to process the information. Trent shot twice into the open truck window, turning the sleepy face into a bloody mess.

Trent spun on his heel and crouched in the shadows, listening for any signs of alarm or retaliation. The generators continued to hum. The crickets resumed their song, but no one reacted to Trent's ambush. The smell of propellant and released bowels hung in the humid air. He could feel the blood pooling beneath his feet.

He looked down at the carnage and wondered what Los Zetas would think when they found this scene. The three corpses lay in a rough triangle. Their position gave him an idea. Unscrewing the suppressor from his SIG, he placed the still warm metal in the hand of the closest victim. He took the man's holstered gun and stuffed it into his own belt. The hasty setting suggested one man fired on his two friends and then killed himself, removing Trent's existence from the picture.

The ruse wouldn't fool any competent detective. The shooter didn't have any powder residue on his hands. The angle of the shots wouldn't match the position of the body. The gun he had in his hand would be different than his normal weapon. And what were the chances of this man having a motive to kill all three of his associates and then himself? The setup collapsed under simple investigation, but these were slave traders, not cops. The gun and the position of the bodies might create enough doubt and confusion to explain away an outside attack.

Trent got out his camera and began to conduct his own investigation before someone else walked into the clearing. He took pictures of the generators, focusing on the make and serial numbers. Baker might be able to trace the equipment to purchases by a Los Zetas front company or get access to other bank transactions. He got images of the suspected tunnel entrance and marked the location on his GPS. The time on the screen motivated him to move. Sunrise was little more than an hour away. He needed to be off Barameja by then to meet the extraction boat. He rifled through the dead men's pockets taking their iPhones and shoving them into his bag. The missing phones would undermine his staged murder suicide, but Baker would want the potential contact information on the devices. Trent stepped back into the shadows, leaving the flies to buzz over the new corpses in harmony with the generators.

He went back to where he left the girl, but she was gone. The fear of staying close to her rapists must have won out over her fear of running off alone in the dark. Trent didn't know if the girl knew how to get to the village or if anyone would help her once she got there, but he couldn't control those variables now. He might be able to track her through the forest, but he didn't have time. He needed to be in position by dawn or the boat would leave without him. Trent moved double time through the forest, hoping both he and the girl could avoid any more contact with Los Zetas tonight.

## Chapter Four: We Are Monsters

Trent got out of the cab in front of the Carambola Resort Hotel. He slipped the old driver a hefty tip and they shared the last laugh of the night.

The community of cab drivers, like the island itself, had a sense of close community. If you stayed longer than the average vacation, you understood everyone knew everyone else and everyone talked about everyone else. Trent couldn't stay anonymous, but he could use the local cabs as an informal surveillance network. If he paid them well and stayed friendly, they'd be more likely to tell him about strangers who might come to the island hunting for him.

He walked with a casual stride around the three sides of the sand castle colored resort. His aimless wandering fit in with his cover as a writer searching for inspiration, but his eyes searched the beige marble courtyards for police. He looked behind the billowing white curtains for operators and other occupational hazards. He didn't sense any threats. Couples on honeymoon held hands on the beach, cuddling in a persistent tipsy haze. Parents followed behind their scampering children with the drawn faces and slumped shoulders of people who needed a vacation from their vacation. Retired couples bickered in the restaurant with the familiar comfort of a ritual and an ancient lady sat alone on the wide patio, sipping wine and looking out at the sunset in silence. But no one showed any sign of following Trent or even noticing him. He looped back into the hotel without rushing and took the stairs to Baker's suite.

The door opened before Trent knocked. He expected Baker to watch the hallway for his approach. He didn't expect to see Chu standing in the doorway instead. The sight of his closest friends brought a smile to his face, but it also raised questions. Chu was supposed to be in New York. Why was he here? The deflated look on Chu's face created more agitated confusion. Trent felt like he walked into a wake instead of a hotel room.

"What's up?" Trent said as the two men hugged. Chu didn't respond. He glanced back into the hall one last time and locked the door. Trent's mind raced with possibilities. "Did something happen to Ghost?"

"No. I'm right here." Baker limped into the room from the wide balcony. "I asked Smoke to come with me for moral support."

"Since when does a debriefing require moral support? I still don't know why we had to do this in person..."

"Maybe we all need a vacation." Baker's words had the same somber tone and weight as Chu's face. Trent couldn't remember the last time he saw his friends act like this. Even when Baker lost his leg, they all maintained their arrogant optimism.

"What happened?"

"Things went wrong on Barameja."

"What do you mean wrong? Listen, I know I deviated from the rules of engagement, but I ran into a special situation. I put it all in the report..."

Baker slumped down into the leather desk chair and stared off into space. "I set up the rules to protect you. I tried to keep you out of harm's way. I worried about the girls in the pit. I didn't want Los Zetas to cut their losses and kill off the whole inventory if they felt compromised."

A hole formed in Trent's chest. "They're all dead?"

Baker shook his head, but still didn't look at Trent. "No. Mexican Naval cruisers picked up two tramp ships off the coast. They rescued forty six girls, mostly from Eastern Europe and Western Africa."

"So what went wrong?"

"Based on your report, we're guessing the girl you found lived in the village of Catalina. It didn't make sense for the sentries to take inventory out of the pit to violate them. From what we understand, rape is a regular part of life inside the warehouse. It seems like the guards you found wanted a little variety and used the village girls as a change of pace."

"That makes sense." Trent sat because the whole in his chest pulled him down with the weight of his dread. "She was gone when I went back to get her. I thought she went back to the village, but I didn't have time to confirm. Are you saying she never made it back home?"

"Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. I'm saying it doesn't make a difference either way."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Just tell me what the hell happened?"

Baker passed him a tablet. A series of thumbnail images covered the screen. "When I first found out, I decided not to tell you. I didn't want you to feel responsible."

"For what?"

"We got reports of a fire coming from Catalina about forty hours after your extraction. Satellite footage showed the whole village burning."

Trent looked down at the screen and scrolled through the images. The first few were overhead shots zoomed in on the north side of Barameja, where the village used to be. The resolution of the pictures was good enough to show individual huts burning and villagers being dragged into the square by men with rifles.

"The more I thought about it, the more I thought you should hear about it from us." Trent heard Baker's voice, but he couldn't stop looking at the pictures. "I don't want you to feel like I'm hiding stuff from you and I didn't want you to find out about it on the news or from Rose."

The next picture focused on the village square. Row after row of squat brown refugees knelt in the mud while their homes and history burned down around them. Trent imagined them choking on the black smoke from the fire and wailing in fear of their captors. The riflemen herded them into haphazard rows with shots in the air, kicks to the kidneys and rifle butt blows to the back of the head.

"We knew about Los Zetas's brutality. We didn't know about this."

Trent understood satellites had the power to capture images of decapitations thousands of miles above the earth. He knew each little round object with a puddle of red in front of it was a body pouring blood into the ground. He saw each black dark ball of hair and recognized it as a severed head. He guessed none of the villagers fought back or ran because the sicarios shot them all first. But he couldn't understand how his eyes picked out the girl from the forest among all this carnage.

The same spindly limbs curled up behind her. A few feet away, the long dark strands of hair stuck to her face and hid her death stare. Trent remembered the fear in her eyes. Did she have the same look on her face when she ran back to her village? Did she get the chance to warn them? Even if she did, what could they have done to protect themselves? Did she remember Trent when Los Zetas attacked her people? Did she try to expose him in exchange for her village? Would someone so young even get a chance to speak? Would she have the courage to face an army of killers to try and save her people? If she did, it didn't make a difference. Los Zetas still tied her skinny wrists behind her back and still severed her head from her body.

Did she blame Trent when the sicarios burned her house to the ground? Did she curse everything about him when they killed her parents in front of her? Did she beg him to come back when they raped her again or did she wish Trent could suffer her torment instead? When the bullets came in the end, was she glad she didn't have to live in a world where men like Trent could exist? Could she take her place next to the nameless child in the crackhouse, Summer Rain and everyone in her village Trent murdered with one misguided choice?

But what other decision could he have made? Should he have ignored her rape to carry out his mission? Would everything be better if he never took the mission and stayed far away from Barameja? Maybe working for Baker was his mistake. Maybe his fault stretched further back into becoming an operator, or joining the military. Maybe if Trent never abandoned his daughter in the first place, he wouldn't be staring down at the image of a headless teenager now.

The heat and moisture from Trent's tears soaked his face and hands. He found himself on the floor, cradled in the strong embrace of Chu as he whimpered. He couldn't see or hear Baker. His head was buried in his arms and his legs were drawn up in a fetal position, but he felt his friend close by. He spoke in a raw, cracked voice as if he had to relearn how to speak.

"What did I do?"

Baker's voice sounded close. His calm tone projected sorrow and sympathy. "You saved a girl from a gang rape..."

"And fucked her whole village in the process!"

Baker picked up the discarded tablet and pointed it at Trent. "You didn't do this. Los Zetas did this. You were trying to be a decent human being. They decided to be monsters. This is why we're trying to stop them. This is what it's all about."

Trent shook away the platitudes. "I let out the monsters. I am the monster. You told me not to engage. I knew what they could do, but I didn't listen. Now they're all fucking dead."

Baker tossed his tablet away and leaned down towards Trent. "You did disregard the rules of engagement. And in the real world, you are a monster. So am I. So is Smoke. If either of us were in your situation, we would have done the same thing you did. It would have been just as wrong and probably led to the same consequences. But you didn't kill her. You didn't burn down her village..."

"I caused it. Me, my choices, my actions. I set the wheels in motion."

"The wheels have been in motion long before we got here, my friend. It started when humanity decided sex could be taken by force. It started when people decided they could own other people and sell them on the open market. By the time you found the target site, the wheels had been spinning for a very long time."

Trent tried to let out a sigh, but it came out a sob. "It's so fucking stupid."

"It is. That's why we all need a vacation sometimes. Even monsters need a break from this shit." Baker reached over to the table and picked up a bottle of whiskey Trent didn't have the capacity to recognize. He poured a healthy amount into three glasses and topped them off with ice. The ritual gave Trent the strength to pull away from Chu's support and sit up on his own.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

Baker handed the glasses to his friends. "First, we drink and let you know you're not alone. We might not be able to understand what you're going through, but we're here for you anyway. Monsters need to stick together."

The three operators toasted in silence and knocked back the liquor in one smooth burn.

"Then we bring someone in to monitor you and evaluate your state of mind. There's no way to know how this shit will affect you, but if you start to go sideways I want to catch it early."

Trent held out his glass for a refill. "You're worried I might snap in the field?"

Baker poured more whiskey. "You don't have to go back out there if you don't want to. That's not what the evaluation is about. I want you to be in the best shape possible no matter what you decide to do."

Trent wiped his tears away with the back of his hand and took his time sipping the new drink. "I'm staying. Monsters like me need to fight monsters like them."

The three monsters agreed. And then they drank.

Epilogue: Acceptance and Support

Summer 2014

"What's it going to take for you to see this team and its actions as a liability to the company?"

Rose jumped back into her argument the moment Baker finished his story. Her languid movements and droopy eyes contradicted the sharp force of her words, but didn't take any of the sting from them.

Baker had the same demeanor as he did when the conversation started several hours and five cocktails ago. "We can't abandon the mission every time we face a setback, Ms. Mendoza."

"A setback? You're calling almost a hundred dead villagers a setback? We save a dozen and kill dozens more. How is that a fucking setback?"

"The lives of those people were already at risk, you narrow minded shit. We're going out there and trying to give them a chance. We're trying to make a difference, instead of hiding behind our desks and pretending our next fucking spreadsheet is going to change the world..."

Rose was so drunk even Ria didn't scare her anymore. She looked the vigilante cop right in the eye and pointed a violent finger in her direction. "Intelligence makes a difference. Analysis changes perceptions, actions and outcomes. Sending mentally damaged burnouts like Trent into the streets with guns doesn't fix anything. It only makes matters worse." She turned to Baker with the same attacking gesture. "If you're not going to rethink the program, you at least need to deactivate Trent and get him the help he needs."

Baker only shrugged. "Trent's status with RSVP isn't really up for debate, Ms. Mendoza."

"Because you won't look past your friendship to make a prudent management decision. He consistently disobeys orders. He's been directly or indirectly responsible for multiple civilian fatalities and he's probably mentally unstable."

"His psych evaluation is ongoing, but at this point the assessment reports are within acceptable parameters."

"What does that mean?" Nikki cut in, both to diffuse Rose's squabble and out of real concern for Harrison.

Baker shrugged again without looking away from Rose. "It means he hasn't exhibited any signs of PTSD, or any other psychological condition, to make him ineffective in the field or a general threat to others."

Nikki couldn't imagine carrying around the burden of an entire murdered village on her conscience. Baker's story put the workout she admired earlier in a new light. Was his intense activity part of a normal training regimen, or did Chu push Trent harder to take his mind off Barmeja? And if Trent could find a way to come to terms with the deaths of so many people, what did that say about him? Was it a sign of mental fortitude or a callous disregard for human life? Was it both? Nikki knew men who found a way to justify anything for the sake of their mission. She hated and feared them. Harrison Trent began to take on a darker impression in her eyes.

And Rose wasn't ready to let the matter drop either. "This isn't about his psych test. This is about your feelings for him. It's clouding your judgment and putting the entire company at risk."

"Trent is a professional with superior skills, good instincts and a strong sense of purpose."

"Trent is unstable and every mission he goes on ends in...."

"Ends in what?" Trent emerged onto the patio with casual but silent steps. He caught everyone by surprise, but Rose's graceless reaction was comical in its ineptitude.

"I...I was just saying...Well, Warren and I were discussing some...I just thought..."

Rose looked to Baker for help, but he let her suffer, taking his time to sip his bourbon in silence. Rose continued to stammer and Ria let out a cruel laugh. Chu slipped in from behind Trent. His flip flops beating out a silly rhythm in painful contradiction with the dark mood of the room. Rose went silent and looked away. Trent shook his head and made his way toward the bar.

"We've been listening to Warren amaze us with tales of your exploits." Nikki knew the false enthusiasm she pumped into her voice would ring hollow in the tense atmosphere, but even contrived enthusiasm felt better than the deadly silence. "You boys have been through a lot together."

"Ghost likes to exaggerate," Trent redirected his anger at Rose to force ice into the mouth of his glass. "Don't believe everything he says."

"I am a spy." Baker said with a welcomed mischief in his voice. "People aren't usually inclined to believe me."

Ria took Warren's free hand and looked into his eyes with warmth and support. "I never believe a fucking word you say."

Chu hovered over Nikki and pulled out his phone. "Aw, look at this. The whole family is here. You know what this means; group shot!"

Chu slid Nikki's chair away from the table, dropped himself into her lap and wrapped his arm around her neck in a playful choke hold. Before she could protest, he held up his phone to capture the whole group and snapped a few selfies.

"Get off me, you freak. I can't deal with all that right now." Nikki pushed him away with a laugh.

Chu grabbed her drink and took a seat next to her. "Are you calling me fat? Didn't you see us working out for like two hours?"

"No, I'm calling you wet, sweaty and dirty. I don't want you all up on me before you take a shower. Ew."

"You keep acting like that and I won't be all up on you after I take a shower." Chu winked at Nikki as he took a sip from her glass. Nikki rolled her eyes in false rejection. Heads around the table shook in real amusement. Everyone tried to diffuse the awkward silence, but only Chu's antics came close to lightening the mood.

Until Trent sat his glass down on the table after taking a long sip. "So what were you guys really talking about before we came to crash your party?"

Nikki offered him a smile she hoped would convey acceptance and understanding. "We heard about Congo, Karbala and The Nostromo. We talked about the women you saved in Brooklyn and Chinatown and Baker tried to explain the stress and consequences of the work you have to do."

Rose's sarcasm oozed over the table like slime. "Yup. He told us all your secrets..."

Chu tried to counter her venom with a playful elbow in Nikki's arm. "Did he tell you how cool I was on the ship? I was like Batman and shit."

Trent wasn't amused. "Did he tell you about the dead babies and severed heads?" The anger and anguish in Trent's voice made Nikki's heart sink and her pulse race. The look in his eyes suggested a fragile grip on self-control. She could feel the negative energy churning from his body. The grueling workout and counseling might take his mind of his pain for a moment, but Nikki thought he might explode if he felt rejected and alone. She leaned into him, resting her hand on his forearm and holding his gaze with her own.

"He told us you've gone to places most people have never heard of, did things most people can't do, and put yourself in situations no one can be ready to deal with."

"Which is why we shouldn't be going." Rose found her voice at the worst possible moment.

Nikki batted her pessimism away. "Which is why we have to keep going. If we don't do what we do, then the world becomes worse, one slave at a time. Someone has to make the hard choices. Someone has to go into the dark to fight the monsters..."

Trent looked away and shook his head. "And become monsters in the process?"

"Maybe, but we need monsters like you if we're going to save anyone. We appreciate what you do, even if we can't understand what you're going through. We accept you and support you." Nikki brushed her lips against Trent's cheek with an ease that surprised everyone at the table. "You might be a monster, but you're our monster and we need you."

"Yes, we do." Baker took a sip of his drink and cast a proud eye at Nikki. She didn't know if he appreciated what she said or the way she said it, but the silent admiration made her look away and smile.

"Hey, what about me? I need love too." Chu threw his arms around Nikki's neck again and assaulted her with sloppy kisses all over her cheek. She squealed and pushed him away like an annoying little brother.

"You still need a damn shower. Warren tell your boy to get off of me."

Baker shook his head with paternal amusement and raised his glass. "I'll try to distract him with a toast instead. He usually falls for that."

"True story," Chu raised his glass to join Baker. "What are we celebrating?"

"Every person we save. It's never easy and sometimes things go sideways, but a lot of people would still be suffering if you didn't do what you do. Without you, none of this works. So on behalf of me, everyone at this table and all the slaves you've freed, I say thank you."

"Fuck yes. Cheers." Ria joined the toast with her signature coarse enthusiasm and Rose and Trent followed. Each of them was reluctant for separate reasons, but at least they were willing to put their misgivings aside for the good of the team. Nikki felt herself smile when she went to join the toast. Then she realized she didn't have a glass.

"Yup," Chu drained her drink and set the empty glass next to her. "I really did just take your drink. What kind of agent lets that happen? You need to pay more attention if you want to succeed in this business, honey."

Nikki snatched the glass and stood up to make herself another drink. "Maybe I just need to stay away from assholes like you." Before she walked away, Nikki bent down and kissed Chu on his forehead.

"Although I'm not sure there are any assholes in the world quite like you."

End

The Crime and Passion Series

Thank you for taking the time to read Smoke and Shadow. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving me a review on my Amazon page. Your opinion counts more than you know.

http://www.amazon.com/Gamal-Hennessy/e/B008D2MPHI

While you're on Amazon, you should also check out my other Crime and Passion novels.

The Crime and Passion Series is the story of one man's secret war against international sex slavery and one woman's journey from manipulated puppet to professional operator. I've tried to create a world of sensual suspense and tense violence I hope you will enjoy.

All the books are available on Amazon. Here's a preview of each one:

Smooth Operator

He knows what you want...

Born into privilege, wounded by war, and skilled in the art of manipulation, Warren Baker works like a spider. He weaves plans and plots, drawing people into his web until they accomplish his goals without ever knowing he was involved.

A Taste of Honey

In the wrong hands, seduction is a deadly weapon...

Nikki Sirene will do anything for her lover Chris. She'll use her sexual charms to commit crimes for him. She'll deal with everything from the constant slut shaming of his mercenaries to the threat of sudden violence from his targets. But she wants a better life. When Chris brings her to Argentina to seduce a suspected arms dealer, Nikki hopes this will be the last job; the one that will keep them together forever.

A Touch of Honey

In seduction, control is surrender and surrender is control...

Nikki Sirene uses her sexual charms to manipulate men and steal their secrets. Desperate for protection and on the run, she agrees to a relationship of mutual exploitation with a mysterious spy named Warren Baker. He agrees to protect her from her enemies if she agrees to help take down a sex slave operation in New York.

Smoke and Shadow References

Books

_Smoke and Shadow_ is a work of fiction, but certain aspects of the stories are based on actual events and real world concepts. This is a sample of my background research for anyone who is interested in diving deeper into these topics.

  * _The African Slave Trade_ by Basil Davidson

  * _Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected_ by Rory Miller

  * _The International Spy Museum Handbook of Practical Spying_ by Peter Earnest

  * _The Parkour and Freerunning Handbook_ by Dan Edwardes

  * _Street E &E_ by Marc "Animal" MacYoung

  * _Streetwise Spycraft_ by Barry Cavies, BEM

  * _Surveillance Countermeasures_ by ACM IV Security Services

  * _Combatives_ United States Army Field Manual No. 21-150

Articles

All Links Retrieved as of November 1, 2015

  * Bruer, Wesley for CNN (2015): FBI Sees Chinese Involvement amid Sharp Rise in Economic Espionage Cases

  * Dzubow, Jason for the Asylumist (2010): Remembering the Golden Venture

  * Gilsinan, Kathy for the Atlantic (2015): The Return of the Mercenary

  * Grillo, Ioan for Time Magazine (2013) Mexican Drug Cartel's Other Business: Sex Trafficking

  * Human Rights Watch (2008) Fighting for Their Lives: The Child Soldiers of Northern Congo

  * Matthews, Dylan for the American Prospect (2008) How Important Was the Surge?

  * Money Jihad (2009) World Class Hawaladar Arrested

  * Polgreen, Lydia for the New York Times (2008) Congo Leader Linked to Abuses Seeks Bigger Stage

  * Radden Keefe, Patrick for the New Yorker (2006) The Snakehead

  * Tracy, Tom for the New York Daily News (2015) NYPD Cop Snared in Brooklyn Prostitution Ring

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