CHAPTER 24
Callum
The wind coming off the North Atlantic is violent enough to tear the door out of my hand if I don't brace my shoulder against the heavy wood.
I step out onto the front porch, pulling the door shut behind me. The cold hits my lungs like shattered glass, immediately clearing the lingering heat of Gemma’s mouth from my senses.
I walk to the edge of the wooden deck, staring out at the churning, gray ocean.
I am angry.
It isn't the hot, reactive anger of a civilian. It is a cold, heavy, dense rage that settles directly at the base of my skull. It is the anger of a man who built an impenetrable fortress, only to realize the enemy walked right through the front door using a hostage as a key.
I reach into the inside pocket of my coat and pull out a satellite phone. It isn't a burner; it is a hardwired, military-grade communication device that costs more than a luxury car. I punch in a twelve-digit sequence.
The line connects after three rings.
"I am currently drinking an espresso in a cafe in Florence," Ben’s voice says. He sounds relaxed, entirely unbothered. "If you are calling to tell me the weather in Iceland is terrible, I already know."
"They have her broker," I say, skipping the pleasantries.
The line goes dead silent. I can hear the faint clatter of silverware in the background of the Italian cafe, followed by the sharp scrape of a chair being pushed back.
"Pippa?" Ben asks, his voice dropping an octave, the relaxation completely vanishing. "How? The syndicate is broke. They don't have the resources to run an international extraction."
"Someone does." I turn my back to the ocean, looking at the dark windows of the house.
I can see Gemma pacing in the kitchen, her hands buried in her hair.
"They sent a message through an air-gapped node.
They have her in a shipping container in London.
They gave us forty-eight hours to return the funds. "
"Callum, that’s impossible. You can't reverse the ghost accounts. The biometric locks require physical presence."
"I am aware."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"I am going to London," I state flatly. "I need you to secure a charter flight out of Reykjavik. Wheels up in two hours. I need a sterile vehicle waiting at Farnborough Airport, and I need you to pull every piece of surveillance footage you can find near Pippa’s last known address in London."
"I’m on it," Ben says, the rapid clicking of a keyboard already audible over the line. "Callum... if they have the resources to pull a ghost broker off the streets of London, this isn't the syndicate. This is someone higher up the food chain."
"I don't care where they are on the food chain," I reply, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "I am going to break them."
I hang up the phone.
I stand on the porch for another thirty seconds, letting the freezing wind strip away the last remnants of the domestic illusion I allowed myself to believe in for three weeks.
I am not retired. I am not a ghost.
I walk back to the front door, unlock it, and step inside.
The heat of the house washes over me, but it doesn't reach my chest. Gemma is still in the kitchen, standing behind the marble island. She has closed the laptop. She is gripping the edge of the stone counter so hard her knuckles are white.
"Did you reach him?" she asks, her voice tight.
"Yes. We have a flight out of Reykjavik in two hours." I walk past the kitchen, heading toward the hallway that leads to the master bedroom. "Pack a bag. Only essentials."
"I’m coming with you," she says, stepping away from the counter to follow me.
"No, you are not." I stop in the hallway, turning to face her. "You are staying here."
She freezes, her dark eyes widening in absolute disbelief. "Excuse me?"
"You are a civilian, Gemma. You have no combat training. You are a liability in an extraction scenario." I keep my tone clinical, stating the facts exactly as they are. "You will stay in this house. The perimeter is secure. I will go to London, retrieve your friend, and bring her back."
"Callum, they want the money," she argues, stepping closer to me. "They don't want you. They want the person who can unlock the ghost accounts. If you show up without me, they will kill Pippa just to prove a point."
"I am not going to negotiate with them."
"You can't just shoot your way through London!"
"Watch me," I say quietly.
She flinches, the absolute certainty in my voice hitting her like a physical blow. She stares at me, her chest heaving under the thick wool sweater. She is trying to find the man who was kissing her in this exact hallway ten minutes ago.
He isn't here.
"I am not staying behind," she says, her voice dropping to a stubborn, desperate whisper. "Pippa is my responsibility. She got dragged into this because she brokered the Marcus Thorne job for me. I am not going to sit in a glass house on the edge of the world while you go fight my war."
"It is my war now."
"No, it isn't!" She reaches out, grabbing the front of my coat. "Stop trying to protect me from everything! I survived the basement. I survived the bullet wound. I can survive this. I am going with you."
I look down at her hands gripping my coat.
I could physically force her to stay. I could lock her in the house, disable the vehicles, and leave. It would be the safest tactical decision.
But looking at the fierce, unyielding fire in her eyes, I realize that locking her in a cage to keep her safe would destroy the very thing I am trying to protect. She isn't a fragile asset anymore. She is my partner.
"If you come with me," I say, my voice a low, rough rumble, "you do exactly what I say. No hesitation. No arguments."
She lets go of my coat, nodding quickly. "I understand."
"Pack your bag," I order. "Ten minutes."
I walk into the master bedroom. I don't pack clothes. I open the heavy steel safe bolted to the floor of the closet and pull out the tactical gear I had hoped to leave buried there forever.
Two hours later, we are sitting in the back of a private charter jet, climbing through the heavy gray clouds over Iceland.
The flight to London takes just under three hours.
Gemma doesn't sleep. She sits in the leather seat across the aisle from me, her laptop open on the table in front of her. She is running a dark web trace, trying to find the origin node of the message. Her fingers fly across the keyboard with a frantic, obsessive energy.
I watch her.
She has pulled her dark hair back into a tight knot. The soft, relaxed woman who tried to make pancakes this morning is entirely gone. She is back in the trenches.
"I can't trace the IP," she says in frustration, slamming the laptop shut. "They bounced it through a military satellite network. Whoever has Pippa isn't just rich. They have government-level clearance."
"It doesn't matter," I say, pulling a cleaning cloth through the barrel of a disassembled Glock 19. "Ben will find the physical location. Digital ghosts still leave physical footprints."
She looks at the weapon in my hands. "How are we getting guns into the UK?"
"We aren't. Ben has a local supplier waiting for us at Farnborough.
" I reassemble the slide, the sharp clack of the metal echoing in the quiet cabin.
"The UK has strict firearm laws. The people holding your friend will likely be armed with handguns or submachine guns, but they won't have heavy military ordnance. It levels the playing field."
"Levels the playing field," she repeats dryly. "Right. Because one hitman against an unknown number of kidnappers is a totally fair fight."
"I am very good at my job, Gemma."
She looks at me, her expression softening just a fraction. "I know you are."
We land at Farnborough Airport, a private airfield southwest of London, just as the sun begins to set. The English sky is a heavy, bruised purple, threatening rain.
A black Mercedes SUV is waiting on the tarmac.
I guide Gemma down the stairs of the jet, the cold, damp air of England hitting us instantly. We climb into the back of the SUV. The driver, a silent man in a dark suit, doesn't ask for a destination. He simply puts the car in gear and drives toward the city.
Sitting on the leather seat between us is a heavy canvas duffel bag.
I unzip it.
Inside are two suppressed Glock 19s, a compact Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, several spare magazines, and two encrypted radios. Ben’s supplier is efficient.
I pull out one of the handguns, check the chamber, and slide it into the holster at my waist. I hand the second Glock to Gemma.
She takes it, her fingers wrapping familiarly around the grip. She checks the safety, her movements much more confident than they were in the basement of the safe house.
"Keep it concealed," I instruct.
She slips the weapon into the inside pocket of her heavy winter coat.
My satellite phone vibrates in my pocket.
I pull it out and answer. "Status."
"I found her," Ben says. His voice is tight with adrenaline. "I pulled the traffic cameras near Pippa’s apartment. A white commercial van with cloned plates snatched her off the street two days ago. I tracked the van’s route through the city.
It drove into an abandoned shipping yard in East London. The Isle of Dogs."
"Is the van still there?"
"Yes. It hasn't moved in forty-eight hours. The yard is massive, Callum. Hundreds of shipping containers stacked three high. It’s a maze."
"Send the coordinates to the driver," I say.
"Sent." Ben pauses. "Callum, I pulled the thermal imaging from a commercial satellite pass over that yard. There are at least twenty heat signatures moving around the perimeter. It’s a small army. You can't just walk in there."
"I am not going to walk," I reply. "I am going to hunt."
I hang up the phone.
I look at the driver in the rearview mirror. "The Isle of Dogs. As fast as you can."
The driver nods, merging onto the M3 motorway, pushing the heavy SUV well past the speed limit.