Chapter 2
LEVI
The apartment smelled like shit coffee and cigarettes.
Not mine—I didn't smoke, and the coffee I drank came from a press pot I'd carried halfway across Europe.
But these two assholes? They lived like pigs.
Empty takeout containers littered the kitchen counter, clothes piled in the corners, a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka sitting on the windowsill like they thought they were sophisticated.
Former Specialists, both of them. Jeremy Kittleton and Dale Popper. Army guys who'd done their time, gotten out with honorable discharges, and then decided the best way to pad their retirement was to sell out every Green Beret team operating in Europe.
Traitors.
The word sat in my gut like a stone, cold and heavy and absolutely fucking certain.
I'd been tracking them for three weeks. Started with whispers in the intel shop—rumors of compromised safe houses, blown operations, extraction points that suddenly had hostile forces waiting.
Someone was feeding information, and the official investigation was going nowhere because the people running it didn't actually give a shit.
They talked a big game. Counterintelligence. Rooting out bad actors. Protecting the mission.
Bullshit.
I'd spent a year assigned to this unit—a special corner of Army intelligence that was supposed to be like internal affairs, hunting down spies and traitors embedded in our own ranks.
When I'd first gotten orders, fresh off my last deployment as an operator, I'd been excited.
Instead of a boring desk job to sleep off war, it was supposed to be real work.
Important work. The kind of thing that mattered.
Turned out the whole unit was a joke.
They shuffled papers. Wrote reports. Held meetings where everyone nodded seriously and then went back to their desks to do jack shit. Meanwhile, good men—my brothers, guys I'd served with—were getting burned because these fucking bureaucrats couldn't be bothered to actually follow through.
So, I'd started doing it myself.
Quietly at first. Just … looking at the intel a little closer. Running down leads on my own time. Making a few calls. Nothing official. Nothing that would ping anyone's radar. It helped that I was stationed in Germany and slipping across country borders was like visiting another state in the U.S.
I was good at it. Better than good. I'd found two sources in the first six months—low-level leaks that I'd quietly plugged. No fanfare, no medals, just the satisfaction of knowing I'd stopped the bleeding.
Kittleton and Popper, though? They were different.
They were selling operational intelligence to foreign nationals with ties to Iran. Not minor shit, either. Unit locations. Movement schedules. The names and faces of operators.
The kind of information that got people killed.
I'd confirmed it two days ago. Followed them to a café in the 7th arrondissement where they'd met with a French national named Fouad Nasser—businessman on paper, Iranian asset in reality. They'd passed him a thumb drive right there in the open, casual as ordering a fucking croissant.
That was all I'd needed.
Tonight, they were meeting him again. Right here, in this shithole apartment off the Champs-élysées. I'd slipped in an hour early, picked the lock on the service entrance, and now I was standing in the hallway just outside the living room, listening.
Kittleton’s voice drifted through the cracked door. "… next week. Marseille. There's a team rotating in from Stuttgart. We'll have names and photos by Friday."
Popper laughed, low and easy. "Nasser's gonna cream his pants."
"Long as he creams our bank accounts, I don't give a shit," Kittleton said.
Nasser said something in accented English—something about payment schedules and encrypted channels. I didn't need to hear the rest.
I lifted the suppressed pistol from the holster at my back. Custom piece, threaded barrel, hand-loaded rounds. Quiet enough that the neighbors wouldn't hear a thing.
I stepped into the room.
All three of them froze.
Kittleton was on the sofa, laptop open in front of him. Popper stood by the window, glass of vodka in hand. Nasser sat in an armchair, phone in his lap, looking like he'd just shit himself.
"Evening, gentlemen," I said.
Kittleton moved first—reached for something under the sofa cushion. I shot him three times in the chest before his hand even got there. Clean. Quick. He slumped sideways, eyes going glassy.
Popper dropped his glass and lunged for the kitchen. I put two rounds in the back of his skull. He went down hard, face smacking the tile, vodka spreading in a puddle around him.
Nasser was on his feet, hands up, mouth moving. "Wait—please—I have money—"
I shot him once between the eyes.
The apartment went silent except for the faint hum of traffic outside.
I stood there for a second, breathing steady, the pistol still raised. Three bodies. Two traitors and a piece of shit. Clean shots, no mess beyond what was necessary.
"Don’t fuck with America," I muttered, lowering the pistol.
Then I turned and walked out.
The next two hours were all tradecraft.
I moved fast but not rushed. Took the stairs instead of the elevator. Exited through a side alley that spilled out onto Rue La Boétie. From there, I walked. Hands in pockets, shoulders relaxed, just another tourist taking in the sights.
I checked reflections in shop windows. Watched for repeating faces. Memorized the rhythm of the street—who was moving too slow, who was looking too hard.
Nothing.
Still, I didn't stop. Caught the Métro at George V, rode it two stops, got off, walked three blocks, caught a different line. Switched trains twice more, then surfaced near the Bastille and flagged down a city tour bus.
The open-top kind. Tacky as hell, full of American college kids taking selfies and older couples with fanny packs. I bought a ticket from the driver and climbed to the upper deck, squeezing into a seat near the back.
Perfect cover. No one looked twice at a guy on a tour bus.
The bus rumbled through the streets, the guide's voice droning over the speakers in heavily accented English. I tuned it out, watching the city slide past—old stone buildings, narrow streets, the Seine glinting in the distance.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out. Unknown number. Text message.
We know what you're doing. Don't worry. We agree. And if you want to keep America on the up and up, come to Charleston, tonight.
I stared at the screen.
A second message popped up.
There will be a private plane waiting at Le Bourget Airport. Hanger 7. Wheels up at 2200 hours.
My pulse kicked up a notch.
Someone knew. Someone had been watching.
Le Bourget was a small airport northeast of the city—private jets, corporate charters, the kind of place where money talked and no one asked questions.
I should've deleted the message. Should've tossed the phone in the Seine and disappeared into the night. Called my command, or my brothers back in Montana, told them I'd stepped in some serious shit.
But I didn't.
Because whoever sent this wasn't threatening me. They were inviting me.
And they'd used the words keep America on the up and up.
That wasn't a coincidence. That was someone who understood exactly what I'd been doing. Someone who agreed.
I looked out at the city, the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance, tourists snapping pictures like the world wasn't falling apart.
Fuck it.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
I stood up, squeezed past the college kids, and hopped off the bus at the next stop. Flagged down a cab. The driver was Algerian, didn't speak much English, which was fine by me.
"Le Bourget," I said. "Airport."
He nodded and pulled into traffic.
I leaned back against the cracked vinyl seat, phone still in my hand, the messages glowing on the screen.
Charleston.
I'd never been. Didn't know a damn thing about it except that it was somewhere in the South and probably humid as hell.
But someone there knew me. Knew what I was doing. Knew enough to send a plane.
And I'd never backed down from a challenge in my life. I was a Dane.
The cab merged onto the highway, the city lights fading behind us, and I closed my eyes.
Whatever was waiting in Charleston, I'd deal with it.
Just like I always did.