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“ W hat the hell happened to your car? Did you leave half of it at home?” Ryan Sullivan gazed derisively at the electric SMART car Jordan had unfolded himself out of.

“Shrank in the wash.” Jordan had dropped his own vehicle with the dealer to get a quote on fixing the damage.

Cowboy narrowed his gaze at him. “You okay?”

Emotion blindsided Jordan. Christ. “Not really. You?”

“Not really,” Cowboy admitted. “Did you find what you were looking for in Africa?”

Jordan glanced sharply at his teammate. He wasn’t even allowed to say they’d been in Africa, let alone who they’d been looking for. No point lying though. He gave the slightest shake of his head.

Ryan’s mouth twisted. “Figured.”

An attractive woman with long dark hair arrived, got out of her vehicle, and strode into the compound.

Jordan frowned. “Who’s that?”

Ryan’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Ah, you haven’t met the FNGs. Behold, the first woman to get through Selection and NOTS, Operator Meghan Donnelly. ”

Jordan knew a woman had passed but hadn’t seen her in person. “She any good?”

“Nope.” Ryan Sullivan shook his head and watched the woman head into the building. “She’s fucking brilliant.”

Jordan nodded. She’d have to be. “Montana requested her for Gold Team.” His friend’s name hit his tongue with a heavy rasp.

“Yep.” Cowboy’s voice got rougher too. Another long pause that Cowboy filled. The guy didn’t do silence unless it was mandatory. “I think he’d have gotten a kick out of her. I do, although, I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“Do not hit on her.”

Cowboy grinned. “I don’t date co-workers.” He drew a cross on his heart.

The mood turned sour again as they headed inside the building for the morning briefing. “I’ll see you in there. I want a quick word with Ackers first.”

Cowboy shot him a glance that said he knew Jordan was keeping information from him and he didn’t like it. Jordan didn’t have a choice.

He’d woken at 3:43 a.m. and spent the early hours searching the news in Zimbabwe. He’d read hundreds of media and social media reports about the accident—zero eyewitnesses, no survivors.

The authorities were still in the recovery stage of the investigation, finding and identifying human remains—a situation complicated by the large number of predators and scavengers in the park where the aircraft had come down.

Even the thought made him want to puke.

Then he’d done a search on Bjorn Anders and discovered something that had startled the hell out of him.

Inside, he split off from Ryan and headed to the admin area of HRT.

Maddie Goodwin was Ackers’ personal assistant and the unofficial mother of all HRT personnel. The recent deaths had hit her hard .

“Can I see him?”

Her usually smiling eyes were bloodshot. She picked up the phone and stuck the receiver to her ear. “Jordan would like a word.” Her eyes raised to his. “Go right in.”

Jordan headed into the corner office and shut the door behind him.

“There’s no news. Red Team isn’t even on the ground yet.” Ackers brushed a weary hand over his mustache.

“Someone tried to run me off the road last night.”

Ackers’ eyes widened. “You think you were targeted?”

Jordan gave him a tight nod.

“Hurek?” He leaned back in his seat. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t, but I also discovered the guy Kurt stayed on to talk to was murdered in Harare yesterday.”

Ackers leaned forward and started typing on his computer. “I’ll be damned.” He looked up. “Any idea what’s going on?”

Jordan shook his head. “Unless Kurt discovered something after I left, and they think I know it too.”

“Do you?”

Jordan shook his head. “We spoke briefly when I was in the Frankfurt airport. The connection was terrible. I could barely make out anything he was saying—but perhaps they don’t know that.”

“You told the task force?”

Jordan nodded.

“I want you moved into a safe?—”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Jordan straightened.

Ackers gave him an expressionless stare that had gotten him his way a thousand times, but Jordan wasn’t backing down.

“Firstly, I’ve just gotten home, and the last thing I want to do is camp out in some hotel.”

Ackers went to speak over him, but Jordan plowed on.

“Secondly, why don’t we use it? Set up electronic surveillance all around my property and on my vehicle. The fact I live in a sparsely populated area works in our favor. Rather than running, let’s invite whoever is doing this in and see what the hell they have to tell us when we catch them.”

Ackers propped his elbows on his desk. “What if they put a bullet in you before we can grab them?”

“They could do that any time I leave the base, boss. I’ll be careful. I’ll vary up my routine. Local cops can escort me home—I don’t want to worry the guys.”

Ackers dragged a frustrated hand through his thick gray hair. “We’re stretched thin with this serial killer hunt and now this plane crash investigation.”

Jordan knew it. The serial killer who operated on the dark web, auctioned off exactly how his victims suffered for the highest bidders to watch while they jerked off.

He’d not only murdered innocent victims but deliberately set a bomb that had killed Scotty and injured many more.

“Those things both take priority. Let’s talk to HQ.

If they set up enough cameras around my place, then I’ll have all the warning I need to protect myself.

I have a space that can double as an impromptu safe room if I need it, and we could have the local police at the other end of the alarm for a rapid response.

I’ll be as safe as I can be, and I have plenty of firepower at home. ”

Grief swelled again, and Jordan forced it away. “Kurt must have been onto something before he died. We need to track down everywhere he went and everyone he spoke to after I left.”

Ackers narrowed his gaze thoughtfully. “Did Armstrong agree with how you want to handle this?”

Jordan nodded. “It makes sense to try to draw these scumbags out. If Hurek has people doing his dirty work on American soil and they’re willing to go after an HRT operator…no one is safe. We need to catch them.”

Ackers raised a bushy brow in acknowledgment.

Jordan cleared his throat. “How did his daughter take the news? ”

Ackers looked down at his desk. “Exactly the way you’d expect.”

A burning sensation started behind his breastbone. God.

Ackers checked his watch and rose to his feet. “You can’t talk about any of this with anyone else on HRT.”

Jordan bristled. “I know that.” They’d been over it yesterday despite Jordan’s objections.

“But I’m not sure you realize how hard it’s going to be.”

Misery welled up inside him. “I have a pretty good idea.”

Ackers nodded. “I’ll call TacOps after the briefing, arrange for that surveillance myself.

Assuming Armstrong doesn’t want you in DC, I want you to spend your time trying to piece together Kurt’s last twenty-four hours.

You can use the office next door.” He inclined his head.

“But it might not be a bad idea to head up to SIOC on a regular basis to see what they’re up to.

In case they aren’t sharing everything.”

Jordan nodded. “Understood.”

Ackers rested his hand on Jordan’s shoulder as he walked past him toward the door. “Glad you made it back okay, son, but watch your back. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Rowena followed Kurt, trying not to worry about the very real danger they faced. Suddenly, a kudu raised its head then pranced away, the stripes on its back like dripping white paint running down its side. Crap . She put her hand on her heart. She wasn’t sure who’d been the more startled.

They were skirting a large mountain on the right of them, and her thighs ached from the exercise even though she was used to walking up and down steep hills back home in the Ironbridge Gorge.

They’d seen a large sable antelope earlier, its magnificent deep brown coat gleaming in the sunlight, hooked horns like twin scimitars on its head .

She hoped her uncle and cousins weren’t too concerned about her.

Hopefully, they’d just think she’d gone off investigating something—assuming Kurt was correct about the police not linking her to Bjorn’s murder.

She’d prefer Uncle Gamba to think she was irresponsible rather than in danger—or that she was a killer.

She checked the time on the ever-reliable Breitling.

Nearly three p.m. They’d been walking for hours, and she was starting to get hungry but refused to be the first one to crack.

Birds sang overhead. Frogs chorused nonstop.

Insects buzzed but not as many as near the Falls.

Malaria was less of a risk here because of the elevation but could be more of a problem the lower they went and closer to the Mozambique coast.

“Do you have any malaria pills with you?”

“I have about a week’s supply of Malarone in my pack. We’ll each take one tomorrow depending on how far we travel today. Good reminder.” He wiped his hand over his brow, a light sweat creating a sheen.

At least she wasn’t the only one feeling the burn.

Earlier, they’d found a small stream, and Kurt had washed up then changed clothes. He’d placed the bloody shirt and trousers under a rock in the stream and left them there.

In case they brought a K9 unit , he’d said.

She hadn’t liked the idea of littering, but the thought they might be tracked using dogs freaked her out. She’d been on high alert ever since.

“How many miles do you think we need to cover before we can be sure they aren’t tracking us?”

He shot her a measuring look. “If Gilder’s involved probably about four thousand.”

Tears smarted against her eyelids. That seemed like an insurmountable distance over which to evade capture and way too much power in the hands of one man.

“Once we’re debriefed under oath, he can’t do an awful lot to stop the information we have getting to the right people. Whether it means anything is something else entirely. And whether or not we can prove it…”