CHAPTER 1
Nantucket County Jail
Nantucket, Massachusetts
My latest deployment in Iraq had ended in a blazing firefight.
Team Rhino and I had fought our way out of an ambush south of Baghdad, and Al-Qaeda had put a bounty on my head for greasing one of their suicide bombers.
Now I was standing in the middle of a holding cell on the tiny island of Nantucket in Massachusetts.
I’d made it back to the island via the last ferry, parked my car and grabbed my gear. It’s good to be home, I’d thought as I walked to my house.
Actually, I hadn’t exactly walked to my house—it was more like I sneaked in. And to be clear, the gear I’d grabbed was a Sig Sauer pistol, a Colt .45, an AR-15, and an HK MP5 submachine gun with all the fixings.
I get why that might’ve seemed suspicious.
Moments later, I was laid out on my kitchen floor, forcibly arrested by the seven legitimately deputized agents of the federal government who’d been waiting inside.
My overseas heroics didn’t seem to matter much to the guys who’d thrown me in jail last night.
I’ve been shot at on many occasions and made it out without a scratch.
But this was my first time in jail. Not exactly Rikers or Sing Sing, I know—not much violent crime on this island since Nantucket’s days as the whaling capital of the world—but a pain in the ass all the same.
So here I was, my pesky ego starting to hurt as much as the ass kicking I’d gotten from the feds earlier. I could see the local boys in blue and the other agents glancing over their shoulders at me in the cage. Fuck them. I just stared back. I didn’t hide my contempt.
I shook my head, gathered my thoughts, and took stock of my surroundings, though I sure as shit wasn’t planning on staying here long.
I had a cellmate. He was about eighteen—twenty, max—and not going to pose much of a threat. As soon as we made eye contact, he shifted nervously and looked at the floor. It must have been his first time in jail, too.
“Nice watch,” I said.
“Uh, thanks,” he replied, nervously trying to pull the sleeve of his sweater down over the glistening silver band.
He was a tall, good-looking kid with a lanky runner’s body that stretched to just over six feet.
The few days of summer growth on his face didn’t amount to much.
He was dressed like a typical summer resident; shorts, sandals, an old fishing sweater—and a $6,000 Rolex, the Submariner with the green bezel.
I had an old stainless Submariner, which had cost me a little over three grand about fifteen years ago. No way this kid had spent a dime of hard-earned cash on his watch. Doubtful he’d ever worked hard enough even to get a blister.
“Is that the fiftieth-anniversary model?” I asked.
He seemed resistant to my line of questioning about the Rolex, so I figured I’d go in a different direction to boost his ego just a tad.
“So, what are you in for?”
“I wrecked a car,” he said curtly. Then, echoing my emphasis: “What did you do?”
Touché, asshole.
“Well, I got into a fight with a state trooper. Or maybe a local cop—not quite sure. Apparently, because of those love taps, I got flagged as a threat to someone important—a senator, I think. Some asshole who’s staying in the house next to mine.
What are the odds?” I shrugged my shoulders and raised an eyebrow.
“Senator Harrison?” The kid was pretty astute.
“Yeah, that sounds right. You know him?”
“He and his wife have a house up here,” he said sullenly.
Switching gears, I asked, “The wreck—anyone get hurt?”
“No,” he sighed. “And I didn’t really wreck it, either.” He placed his head between his hands, rubbed his temples, and breathed deeply, as if deliberating how much he wanted to share with me.
“Well, what’s the issue, then?”
He lifted his head from his hands and stammered, “Okay—Jesus—alright, I took my mom’s car out for a ride with some friends.”
“Then what happened?”
“We went to Madaket to see some girls. We had a few beers and then drove out on the beach. I got it stuck in the sand, and the tide came in. It’s ruined.”
The scene was getting more dramatic by the second.
“I hate it when that happens. What kind of car?”
He scowled and shook his head mournfully. “It was a fucking Porsche, okay? A Cayenne.” He hung his head back down in shame.
I took a moment to consider the disconnect. This kid with the $6,000 watch had just ruined his mom’s $100,000 car, while I’d gotten my ass kicked by a bunch of cops just for walking into my own house. Classic Nantucket.
I straightened up a little and tried to sound serious.
In my best older-brother voice, I said, “Well, listen, man, seriously, no one’s dead.
Trust me, that’s always a good start. And second, no one is shooting at you.
A car is a car; your mom will have to get another one, right?
Sure, I bet she’s pissed right now, but deep down she’s pretty psyched that you’re still alive, I swear. Where do you live, anyway?”
“Summer or winter?”
It was the ultimate gentrified Fuck you. But this pretentious little asshole clearly had a wiseass streak, meaning the kid had potential. I decided to play along.
“I’ll take WHERE YOU WINTER for $200, Alex.”
“Palm Beach, Florida. We come up here in the summer. Our place is over on Cliff Road.”
Of course it was. Cliff Road is probably the most expensive real estate on the island. People who live there don’t worry about sunken Porsches. It’s budget dust. They’ll laugh about it at the yacht club or at the next commodore’s ball or cotillion or whatever these people do for fun.
“Phillips?” said the desk sergeant at the cell door.
“Nathan R., that’s me,” I said, standing up.
Time for me to make my phone call. I gave my new buddy a knowing nod, stood, and walked toward the door.
The group of officers and curious onlookers had grown to half a dozen, including a pair dressed in business suits.
Federal types, I assumed. I was about a foot taller than any of them and in far better shape than the entire group.
While everyone watched me for signs of dementia or some other category of lunacy, I politely held out my wrists for the officer to cuff.
“Thank you, sir. May I have another?” I said to no one as I stepped to the telephone.
“One call,” the desk sergeant said curtly.
I smiled my kindest smile and picked up the receiver. I dialed a phone number I knew by heart, a number known to only a handful of people in the world. If ever there was a man who could fix anything, Tristan Dent was that guy. He had always taken care of me.
The phone on the other end rang, as it always did, exactly three times.
“Nat, my man,” the familiar voice bellowed down the line. “How’s it feel to be the most wanted man in America?”
“Brother, I need a little favor.”