There was something stoic about Washington, DC, in the heavy, darkened gray of early morning. The sharp, nearly metallic scent of the waters of the Potomac. The eerie, quiet resilience of the monuments, still lit against the darkness. Whether running along the Mall or rowing past the shoreline, Ethan found a way, as often as possible, to begin his day here. In the strange silence that only a major city could offer in the hour before most people woke.
Ethan breathed through another catch and extract, enjoying the way rowing felt when he hit that perfect, balanced stroke. It had been far too long since he’d made the time. As the Lincoln Memorial came into view, he realized how much he’d needed the exercise. Needed to clear his mind, challenge his body, find his center.
Now, more than ever, he needed that sense of balance, of purpose.
He’d been off-kilter and out of commission for too long.
Recovery, it turned out, was almost worse than the three bullets to the chest that had demanded it.
As Ethan pulled through another clean catch and extract, his single-man scull sliding through the water, the music in his earbuds cut out, and a voice announced, “Good morning, Captain Coxless.”
“Can’t you call me like a normal person?” Ethan grimaced, fighting to recover the easy rhythm he’d set up over the last half hour. “You know I hate it when you hack my phone.”
“Want me to hang up?” Parker asked, far too alert for five thirty in the morning. “Call back? I can say, ‘Ahoy, Captain Coxless’ this time.”
Ethan started to suppress a smile, then, since he figured Parker wasn’t there to witness it, set it free. “Glad to see all those early-morning rowing lessons weren’t entirely lost on you.” A whole summer of dragging Parker out of bed or away from the computer at 5:00 a.m., and the only thing the man could be bothered to recall was the one vaguely dirty term.
“I don’t know what you expected, forcing me out of the house at an ungodly hour of the morning and down to some pretentious yacht club—”
“Rowing club,” Ethan corrected, dipping his oars in the water, rotating his hips forward, then straightening his legs, his scull silent and smooth as it cut a path along the shore. “The lack of sails should make for an easy distinction.”
“Like I said, pretentious. You wouldn’t even let me have coffee first,” Parker whined. “So really, what did you expect?”
“That exercise coupled with the quiet atmosphere might have a calming effect on your otherwise erratic personality?” he huffed, wondering why he’d ever believed something so nuanced would appeal to Parker.
Parker snorted. “Idiot.”
“Obviously.” For someone who could mentally process multiple issues at the rate of a supercomputer, Parker was laughably bad at simple brain-body coordination, to say nothing of his complete lack of anything resembling patience. Ethan counted it a win that he’d never dumped the pair of them into the Potomac.
“Now, if you’re quite finished with the cock jokes, bring me up to speed.”
“I’m never finished with the cock jokes,” Parker replied, though all enthusiasm and humor had fled his voice. “And I’d rather try, again, to talk you out of this.”
“We’ve had this discussion, Parker.” Ethan grunted, forcing himself not to muscle the oars through the water, to keep his strokes and his mind calm, his thoughts and his body centered. It was a mentality he was going to need in the coming days, and one he’d have to constantly cultivate.
One wrong step, one moment of weakness, of indecision—one tiny error, just one, and Ethan would be dead. And worse, he’d condemn every single person counting on him.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Parker heaved a breath over the line, as if surprised he’d had the temerity to openly challenge Ethan. A few months ago—hell, a few weeks ago—he wouldn’t have. It was just one more example of how much could change when Ethan took his eye off the ball, when he delegated instead of led, when he forgot to account for all angles, all options, all eventualities.
His failures as team leader were piling up fast and stacking high.
“I distinctly recall you, present and accounted for, when we had this conversation more than a week ago.”
“There was no conversation,” Parker said, the clatter of a dropped pencil accompanying his frustrated sigh. “You came in, decision made. No contingencies, no plan B. You asked me to compile a report on the Vega cartel, to find a way in, but stupid me, I assumed you’d take the time to weigh all our options—not go rushing headlong into one of the most violent organizations on the planet!”
“Parker—”
“Don’t, Ethan, just don’t. If you think you’re going to treat me like some desk-jockey tech analyst full of information but lacking opinions, then you’ve seriously misjudged the situation.”
“What I misjudged,” Ethan replied through gritted teeth, “was Charles Brandt.” A senior official with the Department of Defense, Charles Brandt had operated with a frightening degree of autonomy—a necessary evil when it came to off-book military units. The man had taken Parker’s predictive analysis technology and used it to line his pockets, completely betraying both the men under his command and the country he’d sworn to serve.
“You couldn’t have known, Ethan.”
Except, as usual, hindsight was fucking twenty-twenty. Ethan should have seen what was happening, stepped in sooner. The Cyber Warfare Unit was his team—and his responsibility. It didn’t matter that they’d reported in to Brandt and, through him, in to the DoD. At the end of the day, Ethan was the one responsible for everything that went on in the field. He’d been the one to recruit the team members, to train them, to prepare them, to risk them.
And he’d been okay with that. Risk—of injury, of death, of capture—those were all known quantities in the realm of Special Forces. As a SEAL, he’d trained for those eventualities, survived some of them, lost friends to others. And always, always, he’d weathered it, moving forward with the surety that at the end of the day, the scales still tipped toward the greater good.
How wrong he’d been.
“What I should or shouldn’t have known is irrelevant,” Ethan replied, his heart rate ramping up to match the pace of his strokes. “It’s done. Now I have to fix it.”
His rhythm slipped, and for a moment, Ethan fought the current, muscled his oars. His left pectoral stretched and burned, and his lungs ached against the cold air and heavy exertion, reminding him of the consequences of his negligence. If only three bullets—two to the vest, one to the meat of his shoulder—had been the worst of it.
Bruised ribs, a collapsed lung, loss of muscle mass and dexterity in his arm—those were all costs he was willing to pay. They were his costs, after all, paid for with his mistakes.
No, it was the collateral damage that kept Ethan up at night.
The thought of Parker, who had no field experience, no tactical training, standing over the body of a man he’d killed in self-defense because Ethan hadn’t listened.
Of Georgia, who Ethan had assigned to Parker’s security detail, blowing past every reasonable expectation of her job to keep Parker whole and healthy, as a selfish prick with all the assets at the disposal of the US government tried to kill not only them but the entire team Ethan had painstakingly built from the ground up.
And of Will, Georgia’s brother and Ethan’s best friend, who even now languished in some South American hellhole, held by the very cartel that Charles Brandt had sent him to destroy. Not for liberty or justice or basic human decency. Just pure, uncomplicated greed.
“We have to fix it,” Parker said, the sound of a ceramic coffee mug landing in the sink clattering through the line.
“What?”
“You said, ‘I have to fix it.’ I’m correcting you,” Parker explained with a grunt as a drawer squealed open, then slammed closed. “You’re not the only one who feels responsible for this, Ethan. And you aren’t the only one who wants—needs—to bring Will home safe.” A cabinet door opened, then snapped shut again. “Fuck,” Parker mumbled. “She expects me to use a fresh mug every time, but I can never freaking find them anymore.”
“Check the dishwasher.” Ethan rolled his eyes as Parker mumbled something barely intelligible about missing artificial sweetener and the dangers of a reduced sugar intake. The way Parker had folded Georgia into his life and his space, as if he’d always had a place for her there, lessened some of Ethan’s guilt.
But it wasn’t enough. Not by half.
“My point,” Parker continued, switching tracks as hot water gurgled in the background, “is that the team you built is a family, and that means—”
“Quote Fast and the Furious and I’m hanging up.”
Parker snorted. “I was going to say no one stands alone—something I learned from you, by the way.”
“I hate it when you use my words against me,” Ethan scoffed, jerking the oars and bunching his shoulders, rocking the scull precariously as his anger destroyed his form.
Which really shouldn’t have surprised him. For all that brotherhood appealed to him—always had, always would—it was a role he seemed doomed to fail in. Connor, a brother by blood he couldn’t save. Parker, who Ethan should have believed in the first place. And now Will, who Ethan had left behind to rot.
Ethan made for a shitty family member.
“Will’s out there, Parker. I can’t accept that. I won’t.”
He’d met Will—a Delta operator with an easy grin, a wicked sense of humor, and a soft spot for his tough-as-nails little sister—in Afghanistan. Assigned to the same joint task force, they’d forged a friendship based on fast cars, Call of Duty, and Coke—never Pepsi—that was as simple as it was enduring. They’d taken leave together, spent holidays together, and shared too many laughs—and a few too many fights—over a pitcher of beer and a Patriots game. Even when duty and family and desire had taken them to far-flung corners of the globe, the friendship had remained.
As enduring as it was uncomplicated, their friendship was one Ethan had come to rely on. On Will’s agile mind, his sharp bark of laughter, and his constant admonishments that Ethan, despite all evidence to the contrary, wasn’t all-knowing or all-powerful. A true peer in a world where Ethan often felt isolated by his experience and leadership.
Bringing Will into the Cyber Warfare Unit had just made sense. The fledgling team had needed experienced Special Forces personnel who could be pulled from their assignments and dropped in with the permanent team members for temporary missions on an as-needed basis.
Will, with his easygoing nature and lethal, tactical skill set, had been a perfect choice.
A choice that, up until a few weeks ago, Ethan believed had cost him his life.
“You didn’t know, Ethan. None of us did. No one blames you for this. Not even Georgia,” Parker said, his tone going soft and warm and comfortable.
Parker meant well, but he was wrong. Even if Georgia didn’t blame him—and she had every right to—Ethan blamed himself. When news had come that Will had died during a raid against a cartel compound in the South American jungle, Ethan had handled it the only way he knew how—by bearing Will’s flag-draped casket, saying his goodbyes, and pressing forward. Cold, maybe. But also necessary. Will, like Ethan, had known the risks, known what he was signing up for.
Except it was all bullshit.
Because Will hadn’t understood the risks. Brandt’s greed had seen to that. And worse, so much worse, was that Will hadn’t known what he was signing up for, what he’d been risking his life for. Patriotism? Please. Charles Brandt hadn’t given two fucks about love of country. He’d been all about the money, about getting rich off Parker’s program and the hard work of people like Will, who, in the end, had been nothing more than cheap, expendable labor.
That alone would have been enough to keep Ethan up at night.
But to find out that Will hadn’t died? That his actions, his sacrifices, had ultimately led to more than six months of captivity? To interrogation and torture and suffering that Ethan couldn’t begin to contemplate, and worse, that Charles-fucking-Brandt had known?
There wasn’t a level of hell deep enough to bury Charles Brandt—or Ethan’s own sense of culpability.
At any time, Ethan could have listened to Parker, listened to his own goddamn gut telling him something wasn’t right. Maybe it had been Ethan’s trust and belief in the chain of command. Maybe it had been the manifestation of his grief over losing Will—it hardly mattered. Bottom line: if he’d been paying attention, if he’d been doing his job, then Will wouldn’t be out there, alone, suffering, wondering if the entire world had forgotten him.
And Ethan wouldn’t feel so fucking helpless.
So yeah, he didn’t give a shit about the risks or the costs. Right now, the only thing that mattered was bringing Will home. There wasn’t a price Ethan wasn’t willing to pay to see that done.
“There are other ways, Ethan,” Parker said softly. “Less dangerous options we can explore—”
“With what time?” Ethan grunted, struggling against the tide of the Potomac and the swirling current of his own worries that it might already be too late, that Will’s body may have already given out, his spirit given up. It took everything in Ethan to maintain his calm, find his stroke, his rhythm, and force back the bubbling rage that would solve nothing and help no one.
“Every day that passes is another day Will is at the mercy of the cartel, another day closer to the moment that giving up becomes easier than holding out. I don’t care about the risks. I can’t leave him there, not now that we know he’s alive.”
“You sound like Georgia.”
“Can you blame her? She’s already mourned her brother once—do you really want to ask her to do it again?”
“Low blow.” Quiet descended between them, stretching out as Ethan pulled his scull across the water’s surface and under the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Birdsong and the hum of early-morning traffic carried across the water as pink tinged the horizon. Only the sound of Parker sipping his coffee assured Ethan he hadn’t been hung up on.
Finally, after Parker rinsed his mug and dumped it into the sink, he said, “I love her. More than I ever thought I’d love anyone. There’s not much I wouldn’t do to bring Will home to her—”
“Then stop fighting me on this—”
“I said there wasn’t ‘much’ I wouldn’t do,” Parker said, his voice hissing into Ethan’s ear. “But if saving Will’s life means sacrificing yours, then I’m sorry, but no. That’s not acceptable to me. And you know what? Will would agree with me.”
Ethan bit back a curse. “And you accused me of low blows.”
“Someone had to say it. The Vega cartel’s reputation precedes them—they’re violent and ruthless, and all evidence points to the fact that they have no respect for law enforcement and little regard for human life.”
“Exactly!” Ethan said, slapping the water with the broadside of the paddle, his scull sliding sideways in the water. “There’s no decency in a cartel, Parker. No humanity. I don’t know why they kept Will alive or what they hope to gain by holding him, but the second he’s no longer useful, he’s dead. We’re not going to get a second chance at this, and we are running out of time.” Every minute, every second, they debated this was another moment of agony and desperation for Will—assuming he was still hanging on, still hoping. “So please, just do what I asked you to in the first place and find me a way inside the cartel.”
“I already have,” Parker said with a sigh.
“Tell me.”
Parker grunted, and the sound of his chair sliding heavily across wood flooring filtered through Ethan’s earbuds. “Best point of entry is going to be Stephen Milner, Vega cartel accountant and all-around stain on humanity’s record.”
No wonder Parker had made one last-ditch effort at pointing Ethan toward caution. If Stephen Milner was compromised, if they could use him as a way in, then Ethan didn’t have to waste precious time arguing all the reasons why he should be the one to take the risk—the argument made itself. Ethan was the only one on the team with a forensic accounting specialty. He had a head for numbers, always had, and now, finally, that boring degree and near-perfect GPA were going to be useful.
And shut down any of Parker’s objections.
“Give me the rundown,” Ethan said, sighting the dock in the distance and slowly settling back into a rhythm made easier by finding both purpose and direction.
“I leveraged the program, accessed every public database readily available, knocked on the back door of a few others—”
“Parker . . . ,” Ethan warned, “we talked about that.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hacking bad. Bite me, Mr. I Want It Right the Hell Now. This was a lot easier when my program had instant access to every government database known to man.”
Ethan winced. It had taken all of Somerton Security’s in-house attorney’s sway to cut a deal that liberated both Parker and his predictive analysis software from DoD control. One of the downsides had been agreeing to disconnect from all government-controlled databases and to request information or access via the ordinary channels. A process that was as frustrating as it was slow.
“Just be careful, okay? The last thing I need is for our office to get raided by some jumped-up fed looking to make a name for himself—”
“Or herself,” Parker interjected, no doubt grinning as he did. “No need to be sexist while painting the feds with a broad brush.”
More of Georgia’s influence in action. Miracle or menace, the jury was still out on the woman and the effect she’d had on Parker. Really, anyone who could wrangle Parker 24-7, let alone volunteered for the job, was inherently suspect in Ethan’s book.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah. Careful hacking. Got it. Anyway, there wasn’t much for the program to work with. Cartels, unlike terrorist cells, still believe in the power of anonymity. They aren’t using Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other standard social media outlets. I couldn’t pull up much beyond public record of past crimes and known family members. So I cast a wider net.”
“And?”
“And jackpot. Because while cartels might need to keep their business off book, they still need people to cook said books. It didn’t take the program long to come up with a likely list of firms willing to get their hands dirty and, from there, a list of accountants with ties to the Vega family.”
“Stephen Milner.”
“Right. Ivy League educated. Midfifties. Worked his way up through two of the big accounting firms before finally landing at Whitney, Smith and Brindle. Made VP there—”
Ethan let loose a long, low whistle. Landing a job with a top firm was tough. Keeping the job even tougher. Most people burned out within the first five years. So the man wasn’t stupid, just greedy.
“I can’t believe that Whitney, Smith and Brindle would risk their reputation by doing business with the cartel. Most firms are too afraid of the criminal penalties if they’re caught laundering funds for cartels or terrorist organizations.”
“They’re not—not on paper, at least. According to his tax records—”
“Parker!”
“Yeah, yeah, hacking, blah, whatever. Like I was saying, Milner’s been an independent consultant for the last ten years—or from the moment he resigned from his position at Whitney, Smith and Brindle.”
“Okay, but you said ‘on paper.’ If he’s an independent contractor, then what does an international accounting firm have to do with this?”
“Well, that’s where things get interesting. Because as it turns out, they have a relatively high attrition rate across executive and VP positions.”
“Retirement?”
“That’s what I thought, or loss to competition. And some of the time, that was the case. But in about ten percent of instances, employees left and transitioned to independent contracting.” Parker paused, the tap tap tap of his pencil against the desk marking his thoughts. “Here’s the thing, when I turned the program on that ten percent? None of them had extensive client lists, their websites are bland and basic—just enough to pass the sniff test on a Google search.”
“Most likely outcome?” Ethan asked, the pink on the horizon bleeding into orange as morning crept up on the Capitol.
“Program says!” Parker chirped, doing his best Family Feud impression. “When a high-risk client comes to Whitney, Smith and Brindle, instead of sending them away, they headhunt for the right candidate internally. They’re staffing cartels, terrorist organizations, and God knows who else with their own employees, then getting them set up as independent contractors and cashing in a nice referral fee and, if I had to guess, an ongoing commission. They share resources but maintain plausible deniability should one of their former employees come under investigation.”
“Can we prove it?” Ethan asked, lifting his oars as his scull slid the last fifteen feet to the dock.
“For the purposes of criminal prosecution?” Parker asked, his desk chair squeaking as if he’d leaned back too far. “Not without a lot of time, money, and resources spent investigating.”
“But . . .” And Ethan knew there was a but. There had to be. He’d spent eighteen months tearing down Parker’s incessant need to know and share every single mundane detail until they’d finally reached an understanding. Ethan didn’t give a shit about interesting details, only relevant facts. What qualified as relevant, they didn’t always agree on, but Ethan was generally game to give Parker a bit of room for the windup. The man was never so happy as when he got to make a reveal.
“But we’ve got enough to scare them stupid. Play this right and Whitney, Smith and Brindle will fall all over themselves to place you inside the cartel.”
“Great,” Ethan huffed, pulling himself up onto the dock and ignoring the way his shoulder trembled in exhausted protest. “Their backing will go a long way to getting the job done. But how do we get Milner out?”
“Oh, he’s done our job for us on that score. His finances and personal lifestyle read like an idiot’s guide to skimming money from your employer. Couple that with the evidence of an ongoing drug problem and a taste for young girls—trust me when I say we’ve got plenty to send him running.”
If Milner had been dumb enough to take from the cartel, there might not be a corner of the world far enough to run to. They’d want his head, no question. If Milner had any sense at all, he already had an exit strategy in place. And if he didn’t? Well, that wasn’t really Ethan’s primary concern. No one had forced Milner into bed with the cartel. No one had demanded he accept their money—or steal it, for that matter. And anyone laundering money for a cartel knew just where that money came from. Drugs. Guns. Human trafficking.
Stephen Milner had made his choices, and now Ethan would make his.
“Time frame?” he asked, hefting the scull from the water and making his way toward his storage berth.
“Six, maybe seven days.” Parker’s chair creaked and complained in a steady back and forth of perpetual motion, Parker’s default setting. “I’ll have Isaac make the approach. Leading with ‘I’m an attorney with the Justice Department’ ought to have the accountants ready to piss themselves—and that’s before he slaps down all the data I’m compiling.”
“You’ve got seventy-two hours to get it done.”
Parker groaned as Ethan disengaged the alarm on his Land Rover.
“I know I make it look easy, but that sort of stuff takes time.”
“The longer this takes, the longer Will suffers. Make it happen.”
“You know,” Parker said, the clatter of keys already filling the line, “for someone who claims to be a morning person, you sure are bitchy before sunrise.”
Ethan shrugged, turned on the ignition, and put the car in gear. He’d been called worse. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, I got a preliminary prediction back on the mole within the Vega cartel.”
“And?” Ethan asked, unease bunching muscles that had just begun to unwind under the relentless blast of the heater. There were always unknowns when it came to planning an operation, quantities and contingencies that couldn’t be accounted for. That went double for an undercover operation. Ethan had dealt with those realities before, but this was different. This was someone acting against the cartel and, presumably, against their own interests. It made them both unknown and unpredictable.
Which made Ethan’s stomach churn.
“Program indicates Ana Maria Vega is the informant who’s been tipping off the FBI over the last five years and the person most likely to have sent in that video of Will.”
“Have you had any luck tracing that back to the source, by the way?”
“No,” Parker bit out, sounding both frustrated and defeated. “The file was scrubbed clean of any identifying data, and the e-mail isn’t traceable. Whoever sent it in knew what they were doing. It’s a dead end.”
“You mean someone out there got the better of Parker Livingston, noted tech genius and persistent pain in my ass?”
“No one got the better of me, you jerk,” Parker said, his disdain lacing every syllable. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Of that, Ethan had no doubt. Parker was nothing if not creative when it came to revenge, and Ethan knew exactly which buttons to push to set Parker off. But if it redirected Parker, kept him focused and engaged, if it prevented him from worrying he wasn’t doing enough, then Ethan would consider it worth it.
“What do we know about the girl?” Ethan asked, searching his memory for any details that had been covered in the briefings. They’d pulled every resource they could—he still had requests pending with Isaac’s contacts at the FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security—but there’d been precious little information on cartel family members.
“Not a lot,” Parker admitted. “She’s Hernan Vega’s niece. Early twenties. College kid. Other than that? Basically one giant question mark.”
“Hernan’s head of US operations for the cartel, so she’d have access, I suppose.” It was one piece of the puzzle but not the one Ethan most wanted. It didn’t tell him why. Didn’t explain what her goal was or why she’d risk turning informant. “Send me the file, we’ll go from there when I get to the office.”
“Done.”
Ethan hung up.
Until he knew what drove Ana Maria Vega, he couldn’t predict her. Certainly couldn’t trust her. Which made everything more difficult.
But then, Ethan had never really cared for safe or easy.
He was all about the challenge, the risk. Always had been, always would be.
Even now, the first drop of adrenaline slid through his veins, awakening that part of him that lived for the mission, for the action. Too long, he’d been on the defensive.
It was time to change all that.
He might be walking into a nest of vipers, and there was a lot Ethan still didn’t know and couldn’t account for, but one thing was certain: Ana Maria Vega would never see him coming.