He had to forget it. Forget a lot of things, starting with the sandy beach R&R in Playa del Carmen. Instead, Logan found something close and convenient outside Mexico City. No need for another of Jackson’s impromptu helicopter rides across the country, especially as it would be shared this time with the man himself. He needed a little time apart. He needed time to think.

He also needed time to type up a resignation letter. An email, rather, Logan hunching over it in his little economy suite at a chain hotel next to a busy airport.

It was just a precautionary measure, sitting facing the door with his loaded gun on the table. Just a precautionary measure that he’d gone in under a fake name, and a hundred spot to the front desk to keep it even faker.

A precautionary measure that he’d written up a draft email to Jackson while the emotions and the ideas were still fresh. It probably wasn’t the best idea to send it now under those circumstances, but a good idea to get a head start on writing it. As a rule, he hated writing. He hated resigning or quitting even more. But he also knew that he couldn’t work in a system that made him follow the same artificial rules as if he were back in the army. There was a reason why he was done with that. It was also the same reason why he started with DARC Ops to begin with, but now, alone in his hotel room, hundreds of miles away from his “boys,” it was beginning to come clear that he’d reached the end of the road—and reached it alone.

That was okay. Some of the best things in life came to him while he was alone.

He typed up a couple of paragraphs, one of thanks, the other of an explanation of his feelings on following rules he didn’t believe in. He typed up a few lines to wrap it up, or so he thought, then he saved it in the drafts folder—careful not to send it. No. He would at least wait a day before that. He’d sleep on it. Maybe drink on it.

Maybe find a girl like he’d hoped. He needed a reset.

The girl, though . . . that sort of fun might be too risky right now.

Back in Playa del Carmen, with the comforts of his security team around him, a crazy idea like that could have been entertained. But here, alone, he was vulnerable. The added distraction and risk of a strange body would make him even more vulnerable.

No, it was better to get the hell out of Mexico, alive. Come back to Washington before moving the rest of his junk back to Colorado. Maybe learn a trade. Something low risk, low key, and civilized.

Fuck it. Logan re-opened the email. He sat back in his chair, slumping as he re-read the beginning. A sound in the hallway pulled his concentration away from the screen. A loud close of a door. It was so loud that he almost felt relieved. No one with bad intentions would be slamming doors like that. Then he heard a pair of footsteps shuffling away down the hall.

It was, he supposed, really annoying and unnecessary to feel this way after his mission. Yes, he’d personally gunned down some low-level agents in a cartel, but really, with the DARC guys still on their tail, they had enough to worry about without putting effort into tracking him down.

Unless their new scheme involved kidnapping him and using him as bait or as a bargaining chip to make their battle a little easier.

He thought more about dulling himself with a few drinks and a few bodies. There was a bar attached to the hotel. Maybe he’d break a few of his own rules before the end of the night. It was the weekend, after all.

Logan stood from his work table, kicked the chair aside, and took a few frustrated strides toward the windows overlooking a busy commercial airport. He muttered a few obscenities as he looked through the thick glass and watched a distant 747 taxiing along one of the runways. At least the windows and walls were thick enough to block out the noise of jet idle. He was glad for that. If it was at all possible, he needed a decent night’s sleep after the events of the day—and before the events that he’d kick off when he finally worked up the guts to send the email to Jackson. He wondered if the walls would block out his screams, since the window couldn’t be thick enough to block a sniper’s bullet. But there would be nowhere a sniper could get him, backed up against the airport as he was. That was the whole point of it. The thin wall to the hallway, on the other hand . . .

Just watch the planes. Just breathe calmly.

Just make it through the night and then he’d be lucky enough to be aboard one of those planes, flying through the air back to his old life. His old, boring, ordinary life. It sounded so good. Something good and safe to slink back into. He could figure out his job later. At first, it would be about rebuilding his life, his circle of friends. Getting some hobbies, some purpose. There must be a less violent way to make a living out there that he could get excited about. Was that too much to ask?

What would it be? What career would he naturally settle into?

A taxi driver? No, that could be violent, too, if need be. If he picked up one too many annoying drunks or self-important yuppies.

And he could do better than drive a car.

He had friends with a small law firm in Hartford. He had just enough education to pull of paralegal duties. The writing, though . . . he had enough patience to sit behind a desk for a week at maximum. Just the half hour he’d taken to sit and type his resignation letter had taken as much of a toll on him as the whole abduction rescue.

Logan walked back to the laptop, his heart suddenly heavy, his hopes dashed away with each step. He knew he had to do it. He knew he had to quit something he loved for the first time in his life.

He knew he’d find something else. Though he expected it to be hard, the transition tough—like the sharp but brief pain of pulling off a Band-Aid in one hard yank.

He sat looking at the screen as he awoke the laptop from its slumber. He thought about ripping off the Band-Aid. He moved his hand to the touch pad, moving the button to click send when he heard his room phone ring.

He froze.

The loud digital ring froze his hand from the touch pad, from sending the email to Jackson. It also froze his body, stiffening him rigid and scared in his chair. His breathing, too, froze up while he waited for the second ring, while he waited to see if it was indeed real—if someone had indeed just called him.

If he’d been called on the burner cell, it would mean that he’d been found.

If he’d been found, it meant he could be dead at any minute. Maybe even as soon as he answered the phone to prove his presence in what had quickly become the kill zone.

Logan reached for the phone like it was a live grenade. He barked a short and hard what into the receiver.

Nothing in response but dead air.

“Who is this?”

He expected a little voice to come on and say something through a Spanish accent about the front desk, or room service, or some other completely safe and banal conclusion to his latest adventure. Instead, he got an American voice. A woman saying his name.

“What?” he said. “Who is this?”

“It’s Holly.”

At first his brain couldn’t catch up with what she’d said. It was a sound among millions of other random, colliding sounds and ideas that made up his current head space. A sound in the utter and impossible quiet of his airport hotel room.

“Holly?” he finally said.

“Yeah, Holly Adams. It’s me.”

At the name, the me, it became all too clear. His mind caught up to his body in a rush, the idea of Holly, the sound of her, the feel of her. For a time, they’d been inseparable. For a time, anything but an immediate recognition of her voice would have been unthinkable. It was so unthinkable now, her calling him. Unthinkable how she’d called him, how she’d tracked him down and discovered him. It must have been a bad sign.

“I’m glad you called,” Logan said. “But I’m not happy about how.”

“I know.”

“How’d you find me?”

“I work for the CIA.”

“I know,” he said.

“Are you okay?” Holly said, her voice already sounding so natural and familiar to him. “Is everything okay out there?” She must have known at least a little about what was going on. If she could find him like this, she could also know all about the shit storm that day. Perhaps she followed through some channels of the intelligence agencies. At least a little bit of Jackson’s income came from there, DARC going on missions only so everyone else could deny any knowledge. It was amazing, and freighting at the same time, how everything was so interconnected. He supposed that Holly had a lot to do with that.

“Did you have to hack anything?” Logan said. “Or did you find me easily through your work?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do,” Logan said. “Are we even safe talking on the phone?”

“Safe from whom?”

“Alright,” Logan said, “how much do you know about what’s going here? I suspect a lot.”

“I know enough,” she said. “But that’s not why I called.”

He made a mental note to get to that later, why she called. For now, he was worried. “You know what we’re doing here,” he said. “But do you know about what happened today? What I did? I’ve got to be honest, the fact that you can find me like this . . .”

Logan took a deep breath, reminding himself that it was likely Holly who needed the reassuring and the help. He would have to eventually drop his paranoia about a Mexican cartel. Holly was in some sort of trouble. He would also have to not joke about why she would have only called him about trouble. But the trouble in her voice was so obvious that he didn’t even need to ask about it. Instead, Logan said, “How’re you doing?” He meant it, genuinely, and on a personal level. How was she in reality. How was she as a human being and not a problem or a solution, or another pawn of the US government. He still cared so much about her, despite their gaps in communication.

Was she crying?

“Holly?”

There was a muffled sound on her end, something rubbing up against the phone, and for a second, he was worried she’d dropped it into the toilet. Or maybe she’d gotten taken up by a street sweeper.

“Holly, what’s that noise?”

She came back on the line and said, “Nothing.”

“Holly . . .”

“Yeah . . .”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m glad you called, but, under the circumstances—”

“I know,” she said, interrupting him, “and I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not that. I mean, I’m glad to talk to you, but I’ve got a feeling, since you called like this, that there’s some sort of problem.” Just like that, he already felt freed. He felt as if all his problems had flown away already in one of the passenger jets outside his window. Now it was just him and her, and whatever was happening in her life to make her call like that.

“I’m . . .” Holly cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m okay. It’s my cousin who’s not.”

“Can we talk about it here?”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if we couldn’t,” she said, a little sass brought back into her voice. She was a smart girl, she knew what she was doing and who could or couldn’t be listening in. The idea of his cartels listening in seemed so silly now.

“Will you be back home soon? Things are sort of wrapped up over there, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, fighting a chuckle. “They’re wrapped up, alright.” The urge to laugh faded at her silence, then he thought about what she’d said. Why did she care what state—or country—he was in? Would she want to meet? He thought of those seven long years between everything . . . why now? He hated the doubt that crept in, but he asked anyway. It had been that crap of a day. “Let’s be honest,” he said, “are you looking for my help, or Jackson’s?”

“Isn’t it one and the same?”

“Maybe,” he said, eyeing the email screen on the laptop. “Maybe for not much longer.”

“Why?”

“That’s part of what I meant,” Logan said, “by things being wrapped up. I’m not sure about how long I’ll be doing this sort of thing. Especially wild escapades out of country like this.”

“I don’t think I’ve been out of the country in ten years,” Holly said.

“You’re not missing much.”

“I meant for a vacation, even. I bet your out of country means a little different.”

There was a long sigh on her end, and Logan immediately felt bad. He didn’t know why. He could almost feel her pain and his first and only instinct was to console her. But how? He was so far away. “Holly, what do you need?”

“I need your help,” she said, “and Jackson’s help. And whoever else we can get to help get my cousin back.” Her breath hitched on the phone, as she took in a shallow breath. “It’s fucking real serious, Logan. I’m scared.”

“I know.”

“I’m so fucking scared,” her voice wavered out of control. And then, shit, the sound of her sobbing came down the line. It didn’t matter that it had been seven years since he’d seen her; his heart still fucking broke.

“We’ll take care of it, Holly. I’ll be home in a day.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Where do you need me?”

“Just . . . anywhere.”

“I could maybe talk with Jackson and see if he can leave early,” Logan said, “I’m sort of in some hot water with him because of this whole, um . . .”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” she said, hiccupping.

“No. Screw that, it’s no trouble.”

“I don’t want anyone in trouble,” she said, even softer. “I’m so tired of getting people in trouble.”

“Hey. It’s nothing; we can get them out of it.” But he didn’t even know what the score was yet. He just knew that he had to see her. And hold her.