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I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even react.

“Look,” said Markus. “I’ve still got some people left in high places. And I’m sure I’ve got enough favors left… favors I could call in to help make this right.”

Dakota didn’t move, but he did raise an eyebrow. “You’re willing to do that?”

“Yeah.”

I sat up straight. For the first time in a long while, I felt a glimmer of hope.

“So what’s the next step?”

The engines changed in pitch as Markus dropped altitude. In a wide, sweeping turn he brought the seaplane around on its base leg.

“Anbar.”

Thirty-Six

SAMMARA

Slipping into a city of six million people wasn’t that difficult. Baghdad was way more beautiful than I ever imagined, all gold and white spires with the lazy blue snake of the Tigris running through its center.

Getting to Anbar though… that was a lot tougher. Especially with Markus.

For every important contact the ex-mercenary knew, there were three others still looking for him. Some of them were even US military, and a good portion of those were tied up indirectly with Colonel Goddard.

Still, Dakota managed it all somehow. It took three days of flying, driving, laying low and waiting for the right people. But eventually we’d been dropped off at a small installation — an ex-Army camp in fact — right on the western edge of Anbar province.

The place had once been the old stomping grounds for the US military, back in the days of Desert Storm. More recently it had been outfitted to fight remnants of an insurgent group. One left over from Al Qaim, an embattled city on the edge of the Syrian border.

None of this meant anything to me of course, other than I was here. I wasn’t back at the office, picking through crown mouldings. Sitting on the couch at home with a dog in my lap, wondering if I’d ever see any of the guys again.

No, not this time. This time I’d made it all the way into the thick of things — camping right alongside Di Spatia and the rest of Jason’s mercenary company. I was only a few dozen miles from the place I’d imagined painfully in my mind’s eye…

The place Kyle and Ryan had disappeared.

The blades of the transport chopper were still turning as Dakota led me through a nexus of beige tents and makeshift clay structures. Men with sand-colored rifles nodded to him as we passed. Some even saluted.

All of them stared daggers however, at Markus Ladrone.

“Wait here,” Dakota told me, setting me against a worn, wooden post. “I need to talk to whoever’s in command.”

He disappeared before I could protest, down another alley of flapping tents, dragging Markus in tow. I was left alone, raising one hand to shield my eyes from the morning sun. I realized the heat wasn’t even close to peaking yet, and I was already sweating.

“Ma’am?”

I looked up and there he was — one of Di Spatia’s soldiers that I somehow recognized. He was maybe thirty, with dark, short-cropped hair and bushy eyebrows.

I squinted at him hard. “I know you…”

He smiled and nodded, and suddenly I knew. He was one of the men Jason had employed nearly four years ago, back on the grounds of our house. An ex-special forces mercenary — to help guard me from being taken by Markus.

“Come with me?”

I smiled but shook my head. “No. I—I’m supposed to wait here.”

“You could if you want to,” he said. “But you’ll be better off inside, out of the sun. Maybe with something cool to drink.”

I wiped at a bead of sweat threatening to escape my forehead.