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“Yeah. Right.” Dec hesitated. “Nick?”

“You try thanking anybody, dude, we’ll take you for every dime you’ve got when we sit down to play poker.”

Dec nodded. Smiled. Thanking these guys, these brothers-in-arms who stood up for each other, just wasn’t done. They were family. They were always there for each other. They could count on each other the way he’d once stupidly imagined he could count on a woman…

Hell. Why go back to that? It was old shit, gone and best forgotten.

“Finally,” Danny Sullivan said when Nick and Dec reached the patio. “Just when we were afraid the broccoli and tofu were gettin’ cold.”

Everybody laughed. And life was okay again…

Until an hour later, when all their smartphones went off at once. The laughter, the sound of cards hitting Dec’s kitchen table, died. The men of STUD One exchanged quick, tight glances as each reached for his phone.

“You guys together?”

It was the voice of their CO, Captain James Black.

Six “yessirs” echoed through the room.

“Sanchez?”

Dec automatically shot to his feet. “Sir.”

“Put me on speakerphone. The rest of you, shut off your phones and listen.”

Five phones were turned off.

“Everybody hear me, loud and clear?”

Six more “yessirs” filled the room.

“I want you all at base in thirty minutes.”

Thirty minutes? When they’d just returned to the States forty-eight hours ago? The men looked at each other even as they pushed back from the table.

“Thirty minutes,” James Black warned. “You’re shipping out at zero three hundred.”

“Sir,” six voices snapped.

“Details when you get to Condor.”

CHAPTER TWO

Twenty-eight minutes later, the members of STUD One stood at attention in their CO’s office.

“At ease,” he said, and the men relaxed. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re heading out so quickly after what we can all agree was an, um, an interesting mission.”

A faint sound of laughter.

“I won’t bullshit you. This is going to be tough. I know, they always are—but this time the rules will be a little different. You’re going in with minimal backup. If you’re caught or captured—”

The men looked puzzled. There

was nothing different in that. They’d gone this route before. If they were caught or captured, they’d be on their own. If you were a STUD, that was often how it went.

“What’s different is that this job, more than most, has big—and I do mean big—international complications. Stein will brief you in greater depth in a couple of minutes. For now…” Black switched on a computer. A map appeared on a large monitor. At first, it could have been a map of any place in the Middle East.

He jiggled the keys.