Chapter One
BEIRUT, LEBANON
“Ain’t love grand.” Hagan Carter crawled through the dank, dark crawl space beneath their target location, a wealthy family estate.
“Or is that money?” The expected cobwebs and varmint droppings could’ve been in any subterranean passageway, but Hagan had hoped for a little less rat shit in the underbelly of this protected, affluent enclave.
His teammate, Chance, one of those happy-go-lucky newlyweds, snickered into his mic as he led the team. “I think that depends.”
“That’s what they all say,” Parker added from their Abu Dhabi headquarters. “Relationships are cyclical. In love one day, negotiating divorce settlements the next.”
“Wow, bro.” Liam brought up the rear of their underground assault. “You’re a little young to be so cynical, boy genius.”
“Maybe it’s a numbers game,” Hagan volunteered. “My mom wore a t-shirt once that said marriage was like a walk in Jurassic Park.”
“Man, that’s dark,” Liam snorted as laughter filtered from headquarters.
“The more I know about you, the more I see what went wrong,” Chance joked.
Hagan snickered, then added, “Once she wore a shirt for my dad that said, ‘I love you with all my boobs because they’re bigger than my heart.’” He shook his head.
“Traumatized me for years.” The guys laughed again.
“She’s big into t-shirts.” He made a mental note to send his mom a new shirt.
Something snarky that his sister would get a kick out of as well.
“Gotta collect something,” Liam said.
“Like data,” Parker said. “The numbers never lie.” He shifted back to business. “You’ve reached the second marker. Check your position and confirm.”
Chance paused their team to take a measurement, and Hagan dropped onto his stomach.
A red laser beam flicked on and burned green through his night-vision goggles.
Chance radioed back and forth with headquarters.
Hagan rolled to his side and pressed his back against the concrete crawlspace wall as a bead of sweat trickled down his back.
“Confirmed,” Chance finally relayed.
There had been concerns that their path might end at a cinder block dead end.
Parts of Beirut lacked architectural records because buildings had been built on top of other buildings.
Their target location was rumored to have been built during the Crusades, re-purposed during the Ottoman Empire, and re-imagined into the estate that it was today when 1940s French architecture influenced the city.
Jared “Boss Man” Westin had summarized Parker’s architectural history lesson as an infinite possibility of problems. Hagan had already thought that of this job.
Obstacles sprouted like weeds any time an international custody dispute resulted in an abduction.
He knew Lebanon like the back of his hand, but this assignment made him feel like he was navigating a minefield.
“After the next piling,” Parker said, “the access point will be on the right.”
“Let’s move,” Liam muttered.
Their caravan continued at the pace of a hungover snail. The tight space narrowed like a concrete coffin, grabbing for their weapons and gear. Dust and gravel rained on their backs. Their mics magnified every breath and grunt.
Finally, they passed the support pillar and made the turn. The passageway opened, giving them room to spread out. Sweat pooled on Hagan’s spine as he waited for Chance to confirm their coordinates.
After Chance gave Hagan a thumbs-up, he removed the cutting tool from his vest. They waited for headquarters' go-ahead. Hagan’s index finger tapped against the tool’s on/off toggle, ready to put the blade and lasers to work.
It could melt through drywall and plaster and grind through structural reinforcements like rebar.
Hagan’s earpiece crackled with the communication from headquarters. “Aces, you’re a go.”
He powered the cutter and pressed the blade into the wall.
Sparks jumped. Lasers smoked. Night vision goggles protected his eyes.
He moved quickly and didn’t cross a stray line of rebar.
After making a final pass, Hagan flicked off the power tool.
The silence thundered as loud as the cutter had until Liam moved the pneumatic ram into position.
“Go,” Chance said.
Liam engaged the ram. With one strike, the outer wall shattered. A second strike exploded through the interior, where they hoped to find a basement laundry or utility room. But anything would be okay so long as it didn’t shoot or bite when they breached the building.
Chance and Liam took a defensive position, and Hagan surged inside. He scanned the opening. “Clear.”
This part of their job was unscripted. No blueprints. No intel on the layout. Surveillance reported that only a nanny had been seen with the minor. That wasn’t much to go on.
Hagan spoke fluent Arabic and led the charge, eyes peeled for the nanny. They moved fluidly and reached the main level of the three-story structure without seeing signs that anyone lived in the home. Not a single personal touch or stray pair of shoes.
The well-appointed main floor showed that someone had spent lavishly on furnishings, but it still felt cold and unwelcoming.
They regrouped at the base of a marble staircase that wrapped from the formal entryway to the next landing as though its only job were to showcase a chandelier dripping with diamonds and crystal.
“Bet no one gets to play ball in the house,” Liam muttered.
A house wasn’t a home without football. At least that was what Hagan had been taught.
He wondered if the kid had been abducted with the same calculations that the estate’s furnishings had been acquired with.
He couldn’t imagine how life would’ve been if his parents treated Hagan and his brother and sister like possessions instead of people.
The team summited the stairs and spread out, weapons up. Room by room, they swept until only one bedroom remained.
“Where’s the nanny?” Hagan asked.
Chance lifted a shoulder and flanked the last door. “Let’s find out.”
“Great.” Liam took the other side. “Sounds more like a guard.”
Hagan agreed, ready for whatever they’d find on the other side of the door. He twisted the knob and pushed ahead. Chance and Liam flanked his sides. Hagan immediately sighted a large bed, and the sleeping boy, half-under a blanket, still clutching a Nintendo Switch.
Hagan crept into the bedroom, which was more suited to diplomatic guests than to a kid.
Then he saw the nanny. She dozed in a wingback chair with a quilt over her lap.
In a perfect world, they wouldn’t have had to disturb her.
But the world was far from perfect. That was why he had a job that paid the big bucks.
To fix where society failed—and to pay down debts that threatened to bankrupt his family.
They spread out. Chance stepped toward the woman.
Liam moved to the boy’s bed. Hagan positioned between the boy and his nanny.
Short of tranquilizing the kid, their consensus had been to quietly explain who they were and why they were there.
Their target was old enough to understand and, hopefully, welcome their arrival.
The nanny kicked the quilt off and lifted a shaky grip on a handgun. “I will shoot you.”
So much for not waking the nanny. Hagan turned his attention to her, trusting that Liam and Chance had him covered, and in his most trustworthy Arabic, said, “You don’t need to do that.”
He could see that she didn’t want this responsibility, that she was unfamiliar with the gun in her hand. That didn’t make the situation any safer. “We want to bring the boy to his family.”
“You need to leave,” she responded in her native tongue with more force. Still, the weapon wavered.
Hagan maintained a calm detachment as though he wasn’t her intended bull’s eye. Sheets rustled behind him, and the boy woke with a yelp. Hagan shifted to see both the woman and child, then spoke in English, “Your mother sent us. We work for her.”
“You need to leave,” the nanny interrupted.
“She wants you to come home,” Hagan continued.
“I must shoot you,” she pleaded. “You must leave, or I must shoot the gun—” Her voice cracked. “Go.”
“I want to go home,” the boy cried.
Tears trickled down the nanny’s face. “This is my job. I must watch out for the boy. Protect him.”
“We have the same orders,” Hagan replied.
She wept. The handgun pulled at her hands as though it were as heavy as the concrete blocks that supported this house.
“I want to leave,” the boy cried. “Please!”
“We both know he shouldn’t be here,” Hagan said.
Her lip quivered.
“Do you have children?” He holstered his weapon in a show of good faith. Her anguish reminded him of his own mother, of everything that she had faced. “What if you woke up and couldn’t talk to your child? Couldn’t comfort—”
“I do not want to do this.”
“I know.” He gestured for her to stand down. “You don’t have to.”
The reluctance to carry out a task that she wasn’t capable of pulled her into the chair.
Liam swept the boy and his covers off the far side of the bed.
The nanny still had the gun, and Chance had his aim trained on her.
Hagan held up his hands and approached her.
It didn’t take much effort to disarm her, and she fell into his arms, apologizing and explaining that she didn’t want this for the child.
In the distance, Hagan heard Chance update headquarters and Liam readying the kid to move out. Hagan set the woman into her chair. He wanted to tell her she’d done the right thing, that she’d met a higher calling and done what duty and service dictated she should, not a job or a paycheck.
But all he could think about was when his mother had lost his brother and when Hagan had realized that pain didn’t go away. It simply changed.