They took their man-to-man chat outside, him and Jackson with their cigars, meandering through the palm grove next to the raised house. Now and then, he could hear the sound of laughter wafting out of the house. But as they moved further away, it was just the waves. Distant. Relentless.

“We don’t have to talk about what happened with you on the ship,” Jackson said. “I was told a little about it by Annica. The rest I can fill in myself, because I’ve been there too.”

Cole looked over at him in surprise. “I’d never guess that.”

“Me neither,” Jackson said. “Until I was there. Were you in the service?”

“Yeah, but not for very long.”

“Now that I could’ve guessed.”

“Why?” Cole said. “Because my line of work?”

“Yeah, but not just because it’s security. A lot of ex-military guys go into it, sure. But there’s not many that would do the kind of work you’re doing.”

“Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“It depends.”

“On?

“On what I find out about you.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Cole said. “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what you do. What you’ve done.”

“I saved your girl’s life.”

“Yeah, but how many people haven’t you saved?”

“I don’t just go around shooting people every day. I’m not an executioner.”

Jackson looked at him sharply, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t do hits? Wet work?”

“No,” Cole said. “Scare someone, yes. Hurt them, maybe. But until today, they’ve never asked me to kill anyone.”

“And our investigations won’t find out differently? They’re pretty thorough.”

“I’ve been clean with everything else I’ve said, haven’t I?”

“Maybe,” Jackson said. “We’re still looking.”

“And I’ve come forward with some pretty damning evidence.”

“We need more.”

“I need more,” Cole said. “I think you’re forgetting how my ass is on the line here. We need evidence to put a stop to the Kahn Brothers, but I also need to save myself. You don’t think that’s enough motivation for me?”

Jackson put the cigar back into his mouth.

“I don’t need a pep talk.”

A cloud of smoke from Jackson.

“I don’t need your threats, either.”

“Okay,” Jackson said, whipping his head toward the house.

Cole heard it, too, footsteps through sand. He looked through the shadows. “I want to feel like you trust me. So we can go through with this thing.”

“It’s a problem on my end,” Jackson said, still watching down the path. “I’m slow to trust.”

A face emerged, lit up soft and white with moonlight. Annica. “But once he trusts you,” she said, “that’s when you’re really screwed.”

“I’m better off screwed that way than what the Kahn’s have in store for me,” Cole said.

She walked up to them, slowly, bare feet dragging the sand. “How are you guys doing?”

“Very well,” Jackson said.

“You’re not giving him a hard time, right?” she asked, inclining her head toward Cole.

“He gave me a cigar,” Cole said.

“Okay,” she said, looking almost relieved. “That’s a start.”

“It’s more than a start,” Jackson said, admiring his cigar, rolling it to see the ash line. “It’s from Tansy, a two-hundred-dollar Cohiba.”

“What?” Cole said, regretting that he’d spit out his reaction like that. But he was shocked to hear about the price tag. Shocked that Jackson had been so generous, and shocked that it tasted as bad as it did. Or maybe he just couldn’t appreciate cigars.

“So he’s trying to buy your allegiance,” Annica said.

“It’s working.” Cole took another puff from the cigar that had begun to sour. He had wanted to say something nice about it, to at least acknowledge the extravagant price of the cigar. But it would be a lie. It wasn’t working at all, though he appreciated the gesture. He’d already come to appreciate a lot about the DARC Ops founder and leader. Where was a guy like that when he was in the military? Maybe if he’d met someone like Jackson, he would have stuck around a little longer. Maybe stay on the straightened path.

“So, Annica,” Jackson said. “How’s your intern doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“How is he?”

“As a journalist? Fine. He’s great, a great prospect.”

“I’m assuming you brought him here because he can do more than write.”

Her eyes narrowed in the dark.“What do you mean?”

“No, nothing improper.”

“What?”

Cole took a step back, and brought the cigar back into his mouth. Not for the taste, but for something else to do than be in the middle of whatever this was.

Annica said, “What do you mean, more than write?”

“Can he handle a gun?”

“He’s a military guy, Jack. I told you that.”

“He is?”

“Not for as long as you, but yes. He got a medical discharge, something about his heart. Heart in the physical sense.”

An odd silence fell over them. Cole walked back into their conversation, watching how Jackson seemed to look away at the ocean, letting his cigar just dangle limply at his side like it was suddenly a piece of trash he’d picked up along the footpath. The DARC Ops leader took a deep breath.

“He hasn’t really seen much action,” Annica said. “But he’s been through basic training and everything. He can handle a weapon for sure.”

“I didn’t know,” Jackson said. “All this time I thought he was a literal pencil pusher.”

“I told you about him.”

“Maybe I would’ve remembered,” he said, “if you mentioned the discharge. Did you leave that out?”

“I might have.”

Jackson turned his gaze to Cole and said, “I had something similar happen to me. Something went wrong with my ear.” He, perhaps unconsciously, began rubbing it with his other hand. He shrugged and said, “Got me kicked out of the SEALs.”

“For better or worse?” Cole asked.

“For better. Much better.”

“So I’m still curious,” Annica said. “Or maybe a little scared . . .”

Jackson said, “About what?”

“Why were you asking about Ethan? If he can handle a gun and all that.”

“We might need an extra hand,” Jackson said.

“Oh, God . . .”

“In fact, I know we do. Tucker and Macy are all wrapped up here tomorrow.”

“They’re leaving?”

Jackson nodded. “They’ve already put in two weeks here, including stalking down and hauling in this guy, our star witness. Let’s just say we might have ruined their vacation.”

“Is Tansy still coming?”

“Maybe,” Jackson said. “But I’m not sure if we’ll need him. We’re basically just doing a surveillance sweep. Evidence collection, all that. Then we’ll pass on everything to the authorities.”

“What about Cole?” Annica said.

“Once the alphabet agencies clamp down on the Kahns, I imagine they’ll be a little too busy to chase down their loose ends. Loose ends being this guy.”

“What about the phone?” Cole said.

Jackson paused for a moment, then said, “What phone?”

“My phone,” Annica said. “His boss needs to see it, apparently, to make sure I’m dead.”

“It’s to find out your identity,” Cole said. “But now that I can’t come up with it, he’s probably more concerned with me.”

“Why couldn’t he just look, himself? He could’ve just checked for her body in the dumpster.”

“It’s too late for that,” Cole said. “The truck came right when I was down there. So don’t worry about the body.”

“I never was,” Jackson said. “I can rig up a phone, but not a body. Or at least, I haven’t had to before.”

“I’m sure you could rig up a body,” Annica said. “Maybe get something from the morgue? You’ve done crazier missions.”

Jackson laughed. “Well, that’s one trick I’m not dying to learn. I’m very happy to hold off on getting a body, if it means I can just rig up a phone. Is that what we’re talking about here?”

“Yeah,” Cole said. “But how?”

Jackson was tapping his finger against his cigar. Then he put the cigar in his mouth.

“Could we just give them her phone?” Cole said. “If the Kahns are going down like you say they are, then it won’t matter if they know her name. We can do this tomorrow. Or even tonight. Just give them her phone straight up.”

“We’ll give them a phone,” Jackson said. “I’m just trying to think about what kind of software to put on it, and how long that’ll take Tansy to implement.”

“What’s the software going to do?” Annica said.

“Trackers, mostly,” Jackson said, “Spyware, a real-time collection of audio and video.”

What kind of evidence would it find? There’d be plenty of Captain’s chain-smoking between office romps with his Hawaiian secretary. But would there be anything actually useful?

“Think about it,” Jackson said. “It’s literally a Trojan horse.”

Annica was nodding, turning to Cole and saying, “What do you think?”

“I guess I’m not really sure.”

“How tech savvy is your boss?” Jackson asked.

“Not very, but he has people. We have an in-house hacker. That was the whole reason for getting the phone in the first place.”

“Shit,” Jackson muttered. “Well, he won’t be better than Tansy. I know that much.” He pulled out his cell. “I’ll call him now. He’ll have to pull an all-nighter, but he should have something for us in the morning.”

“Won’t it take longer to send it to Hawaii?” Cole asked, feeling a little stupid for the question.

“He’ll send it electronically,” Jackson said. “It’s just software.”

“Oh, right,” Cole said, feeling even a little more ignorant about this new high-tech, high-stakes world. “Yeah, software.”

He noticed that Annica had been giving him a weak yet lingering smile. She was still looking at him while Jackson continued with their informal briefing. “So we’ll have the mock phone operational tomorrow. That won’t be a problem. But how about getting it to Captain? Do you think that’ll bring too much heat on you?”

“There’s already a lot of heat on me,” Cole said. “I mean, if you were to ask me an hour ago to pay a visit to Captain, I probably would’ve told you to fuck off.”

“Hmm,” Jackson said.

Annica was still smiling at him. What the hell was she smiling about?

“Listen, I’m all packed up. I was just about to head inland and hide away for a few weeks,” he said. “Going back to the facility, any of them, or any of his warehouses, was the last thing I was thinking about doing.”

“Well, maybe that’s why you should do it,” Jackson said. “It’ll be a surprise when you actually show up with the phone, and I bet it’d convince him to trust you.”

Now it was Cole’s turn to purse his lips together to form a thoughtful, “Hmm . . .”

“I bet the faster you get back to him, even just contacting him electronically, even tonight—”

“Tonight?”

“The faster you get in touch with Captain, the sooner he’ll check you off the list of people he’s got to look after.”

Cole wasn’t sure if he had it in him to call tonight. All he really wanted to do was somehow get Annica alone so they could finally talk.

“Do you ever just call him?” Jackson said. “Is that normal? Is there a way that you can do that and make it seem natural?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Cole said.

Jackson nodded. “Figure it out and let me know. And get a plan ready for going to see him as soon as tomorrow. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” Cole said.

“We can have someone monitoring you, if you want.”

“No,” Cole said. “No, I’ll go it alone.”

“You can still be alone,” Jackson said. “We’ll just be listening in.”

“Do it,” Annica said, “Please?” Her eyes matched her pleading tone. A hint of fear mixed in there, too. She had definitely been once bitten . . .

“No.” Cole shook his head. “I don’t want to have a wire on me in case he—”

“It’s not a wire,” Annica said, turning to Jackson. “Right?”

“No wires. It’ll be virtually undetectable.”

Cole said, “Virtually?”

“It’ll be undetectable. We’ll just be able to listen in case you get in trouble. We can attach tracking, too, in case . . .”

“In case you have to rush in there, guns blazing?” Cole smiled at Annica. “You and . . . Ethan, the intern reporter?”

“Better than nothing,” Jackson said. “Or we can forget about the phone completely. Your call.”

It would be a big help to get Captain this phone. It would provide a buffer, some breathing room, and perhaps salvage the lingering scraps of trust he had in his security guard. “Alright,” Cole said. “Suit me up with a wire.”

“Not a—”

“A bug, then,” Cole said. “Whatever you want to call it.”

“Let’s call it a bug,” Annica said with a smile. “And a deal?”

He looked at her one last time, expecting to see the veneer break. But her smile kept its warmth. It even warmed him. “Alright,” Cole said, reaching out his hand first to hers, shaking it firmly. “Deal.”

Jackson came over now, his arm around Cole’s shoulder as they shook hands. It felt like he’d been welcomed into some secret fraternity.

“Okay, it’s official,” Jackson said. “We’re doing this.”

Cole gave him a nod. “Yes, we are. All the way.” He looked at his cigar. It had gone out. “Sorry about the smoke, though. I guess I might have wasted it.”

“Nah.”

“I’m not huge on cigars; I was just trying to be polite.” He chuckled a little, forcing it out to smooth over the awkwardness. “I had no idea how expensive it was, though, so now I feel even worse.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jackson said. “If all goes well and we sew this thing up, we’ll have a real reason to celebrate. Not cigars, but whatever you’re into. What is it? Dirt bikes?”

“That reminds me,” Cole said. “My bike’s still in the back of that van. Don’t let them drive off with it.”

Jackson nodded. “You want me to take care of that?” He was pointing to Cole’s wasted Cohiba.

“Umm . . .” Cole handed it to him. “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Jackson said, walking off.

Annica stayed put, her body leaning slightly toward the wind and the sound of the waves, some of its salt and warmth kicking up through her hair in the dark.

“So, Cole . . . Shall we keep going?”

He looked at her face, still pale in the moonlight. Still soft and trusting. He wanted to reach out to her to feel that softness, his knuckles caressing against her cheek. He wanted to know if it was real. If any of this could really be as good as it seemed.

Who were these people that were so concerned? Who had all the answers? And who could potentially save his life?

He’d learned more than once not to be so quick to trust the kindness of others. Especially strangers who might in fact be government agents, or worse . . . black operatives grooming their patsy. So far, they’d seemed like experts in tracking and kidnapping. What else did they have in store for him?

The biggest question for Cole, right now, was about the kind of intentions that hid behind this pretty, smiling face. What went beyond that surface of innocence and stunning beauty? And what made her so attracted to him?

He was coming to understand what had been attracting him to her.

Some of it was coincidence and timing.

Some of it was the questions she’d asked.

A lot of it was how she proposed this last moonlit question . . . and how they walked on, silently, side by side, the beach and the night opening up ahead.

He found it incredible to imagine that just a few month-old emails could have led to this, cigars with the owner of DARC Ops, with a reporter by his side. One he could actually trust. A whole arsenal of weapons at their disposal, from firearms to computer viruses, and to whatever else. He’d likely not even know what to do with half of it. But with Annica, he knew exactly.