CHAPTER ONE
Thirty miles north of Stowe, Vermont
November 20
The small cabin sat nestled in a clearing in the snowy wood. Smoke puffed amiably into the starry sky.
The setting might have inspired Robert Frost but for the rotting roof and supporting wall threatening collapse. The crumbling chimney sat at a Seussian angle, and most of the windows were boarded up.
Then, of course, there were the men inside.
Dressed in winter camouflage, Camilo Canto moved silently through the wet snow, approaching the house from the side. He was the newest member of the team, but with each day that passed and every op they ran, Cam grew more certain that leaving the CIA to join Bishop Security was one of the best decisions he had ever made. In eight short months, he had found a home and had slammed the door on the demons of his past undercover work.
If only those demons would stop knocking.
Cam stepped on a twig, the small snap like an explosion in the quiet. He was distracted, and it didn’t matter if he was a SEAL, an undercover officer, or a Bishop Security operator; distraction could get you killed.
Before they boarded the jet in South Carolina, Cam had received word from the CIA that someone had called the cell phone belonging to Cam's cover identity, Miguel Ramirez. The call had not connected and had come from an untraceable burner phone. It was a nonevent—no message, no caller to identify—and yet it needled him. It was the country code where the phone call originated that spurred his disquiet: Crimea.
There was one man who might have called him from that part of the world. Cam didn’t have friends in the CIA, but Raymond Greene came close. He and Raymond shared a common interest in a very uncommon criminal. Greene knew Cam was out of the CIA, which only made the phone call more confounding. If it even was Greene who had attempted to contact him.
A voice in his ear forced Cam into the here and now. “Cam, what's your twenty?” Miller “Tox” Buchanan, their team leader, spoke in an even voice.
“About thirty yards to the north. I have a clear view of what looks like the kitchen. No activity.” Cam refocused—if there was one thing he could do without hesitation after living for more than two years as his cover identity, Miguel Ramirez, it was compartmentalize.
“I thought Vermont was supposed to be quaint, like where they tap maple trees and churn butter and shit. This isn’t one bit quaint.” Hercules Reynolds, their sniper, spoke into the comm from his perch in a White Poplar. “Very un-fucking-quaint.”
“Fuck off, Herc. At least you’re in a tree. I’m stuck in an ice swamp,” Jonah “Steady” Lockhart muttered from thirty feet below Herc's roost. Steady had earned his nickname on his SEAL squad for his ability to keep an even keel under the most trying of circumstances. Despite the griping, today was no exception.
The crunch of tires on gravel had the men snapping to attention.
“Incoming.” Looking through binoculars, Leo “Ren” Jameson spoke from behind a tree to Cam's left. Ren was short for Renaissance Man. Leo Jameson was officially their medic; he also possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of topics ranging from astrophysics to zoology.
Bishop Security had been contracted to locate and rescue the daughter of a prominent insurance executive. Amy Rafferty had been driving from Bloomington, Indiana to Colorado to meet up with friends for a ski trip when she went missing. Her car was located at a truck stop outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. The FBI was only too happy to hand over the case. Their list of investigations into killings and abductions potentially involving long-haul truckers was so long, the agency had an entire database dedicated to it.
The evidence—security footage and some blood droplets at the primary crime scene—had led the team to Alfred Winston Bell. Bell was a forty-three-year-old trucker with a string of offenses, including public indecency and peeking while loitering—a lawyerly way of saying he was a peeping tom. It appeared Mr. Bell had decided to take it up a notch. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong girl. Amy Rafferty's father was an influential businessman with a network of connections that looked like an airline route map.
A rusted-out pickup rumbled up the drive, pulled onto the grass, and stopped with a sputter. A tall man with a beer gut jumped down, then turned back to the cab to grab four pizza boxes and a six-pack. He entered the cabin through a side door.
“Is that Bell?” Herc asked.
“Negative,” Steady responded.
Cam crept through the wet snow to a closer tree, confident in his ingrained training. He had served as a SEAL with most of these guys before leaving the Navy to work for the CIA. He spoke softly into his comm.“I’ve got three men in the cabin. I don’t have a visual on the girl, but Asshole Number One brought four pizzas when he came in, so it's a safe assumption there are more people in there.”
“Unless Tox is in there,” Steady ribbed. “Four pizzas would be about right.”
Tox fired back, “I’m currently in a warm, dry van getting some very provocative texts from my wife, but by all means, you boys keep up the trash talk.” Tox was a newlywed. He had fallen in love on an op last spring, and the six-foot, five-inch warrior was like putty in his new wife's hands.
Steady and Ren both groaned from their positions in the icy snow.
“Got a visual on the girl,” Herc said, staring through the scope of his rifle. “She's in an upstairs bedroom. Looks like she's alone.”
“Tox, Asshole Number Two just polished off the fifth of Wild Turkey they’ve been passing around. I’m going to move to the window,” Cam said.
“Good copy. Any of these assholes our guy?” Tox asked.
“Negative. Moving in now,” Cam answered.