CHAPTER 1
There’s an old song in my head about a gambler, about playing his cards right, knowing when to hold them, fold them…
and walk away. It’s a memory on repeat, the country singer warbling from my father’s felt-covered transistor radio as he works on a minibike in our garage back in Tennessee.
But it’s the last line that sticks with me… You gotta “know when to run.”
Maybe that’s my problem. I’ve stayed at the table too long. I’ve missed my opportunity to escape. At least that’s what it feels like as I stand in the misty, dour early evening watching a guy who I think might be a Russian assassin, waiting for his next move.
I’m across the street and three storefronts down, in the recessed doorway of a tabac shop, about sixty feet from the entrance of the hotel El Cielo, on Carrer d’Aribau in the Eixample district of Barcelona.
Six floors of limestone, with a brass revolving door doing its slow ceremonial spin under the doorman’s hand.
Two concrete planters with fake topiaries flank the entrance.
I’m cold, my hands shoved into my leather jacket, and my mind is circling…
Nope. I’ve done so well over the past eight months, forgetting her. We’re not bringing her up again.
I promise.
But I will say this…It feels like all my choices have boiled down to this moment, standing alone in the cold in January, in Barcelona, and now I’m here, whether I like it or not, no way home.
Don’t feel too sorry for me—I like my life. And for years, I didn’t look back. But after recent events, I’m wondering if a guy can walk so far away from who he wanted to be that there’s no turning back.
Aw, I’m probably just in a bad mood because I’m cold.
Winter in Barcelona is wet, gray, and short on charm.
The brochures don’t mention that, in case you’re considering a trip here.
Catalonia has excellent food, however. Usually.
Maybe I should blame my mood on the tortilla espanola I bought from a counter joint near Avinguda Diagonal.
The eggs were fine…I think the chorizo might have been a mistake.
Still, my gut could be churning because there’s something afoot at the hotel—Mercedes and airport limousines keep pulling up to the front door.
I know, I know—it’s a hotel. But this feels different.
There’s an event that I’m missing, and it’s probably important or Vladimir Dragan wouldn’t be lurking in his SUV down the block, watching the door with his assassin’s eyes.
He’s up to something, and dollars to donuts it involves the Russian mob and a guy named Tomas Petrov.
I’m here to figure it out, however, and I will. Just give me some time.
My assignment is to stake out the hotel, watch Dragan, and figure out his game. But about ten minutes ago I spotted the other guy, his cigarette a red glow in the service alley near the entrance. The thing is, he doesn’t quite look like a catering chef catching a smoke.
I dunno—you tell me. He’s mid-forties. Stocky. Dark utility trousers. White catering jacket with no scuff marks on the elbows. He stands with his back against the brick, his other hand in his pocket.
Let me interject here and mention that I’ve been camped out in this very spot for two days.
I’ve gotten to know the kitchen staff. There’s a sous chef that comes out and gets on his phone, always loud, gesturing, swearing in Catalan.
And then another guy, skinny, who lights up something other than a cigarette.
Hey, it’s Barcelona—I don’t ask questions.
But this guy…yeah, he doesn’t fit. I’m going to call him Oleg. He has the build, the haircut, and a sort of Russian-leaning vibe. Or maybe I’m just prone to assign everyone in Tomas’s circle a Russian name.
So now I’m watching Oleg. And Dragan.
And that’s when Caleb Group Director Logan Thorne decides to pipe through my earwig. “Sitrep.”
Logan isn’t really my boss—I work alone, an independent contractor—but Logan and I go way back, all the way to BUD/S and beyond, and now he needs HUMINT. I need eyes in the sky and data. So we’re back to being swim buddies, of a sort.
“I’ve got eyes on another guy,” I say. “But something doesn’t feel right. I need to take a look-see.”
“Roy—”
“He’s not kitchen staff.”
And right then, as if to confirm my gut, Oleg’s right hand adjusts the line of his jacket. The fabric settles back wrong at the left hip. Yep, I knew it. “He’s carrying.”
A pause.
“Don’t blow this,” Logan says.
“He’s waiting for someone, I’m sure of it.”
Okay, here’s what I’m not telling Logan. Just like I felt fourteen years ago when everything collapsed on us, I know something is going down. I have never been the guy who sits on his hands when he should be moving.
Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to walk away. I can’t change my spots, so, “I’m just going to get in closer for a better look.”
And now Logan sighs. I know this sigh—it says, Please don’t go off mission—but I mentioned he’s not really my boss, right? So I ignore it.
The alley runs fifteen meters back to the wall of the next building. Twilight casts shadows into the grimy space. I’ve spotted a CCTV camera on the building opposite, so if I need to, I’ll ask Coco to hack in and get me details.
“BJ…”
Oh, he’s pulled out my old nickname, a derivative of Benjamin, my surname. Yeah, sorry, not going to work. But I do add, “Listen, I won’t blow this. But Oleg”—yes, that’s a lock now—“looks like he’s about to take someone down and I need to know who.”
“Make it clean,” Logan says.
“Always.”
I take the earpiece out and pocket it.
Carrer d’Aribau is a two-lane artery with steady traffic, even late. The scent of wet stone, cigarette smoke from the nearby bars, hot grease, and a garlicky steam from the alleyway clogs the air.
I wait for a break, then hustle across the street on the diagonal, and just for safe measure, I wave at someone, as if I’m late.
Then I duck into a shop. I don’t think Dragan can see me from here, but I’m not far from the entrance to the hotel.
And the alleyway is just a few steps away.
Here goes nothing.
I edge out of the doorway, take a jaunt down the sidewalk, and turn into the alleyway.
Oleg has thrown down his cigarette and now checks his watch. I keep walking, like I might be on my way to work.
Six feet away, he meets my eyes. Frowns.
I come at him without stopping, and I think that’s what gets him—he doesn’t expect it—and suddenly I have his wrist in a lock.
His phone falls and my thumb presses his carotid on the right side. Then, just like that, I turn him, get him into a sleeper hold.
He goes out in under twenty seconds.
I kick out his footing and control his head on the way down so his skull doesn’t kiss the concrete.
I hold for five seconds. Check his breathing. Check the alley.
So that went better than expected.
I pick up the phone, then check his jacket and find a subway card. I grab the folding knife in his belt clip. In his left sleeve, under the cuff, I find a second phone, taped to his forearm with medical adhesive.
A quick rip and it’s off.
And of course I relieve him of his suppressed CZ Shadow 2 semiautomatic handgun— Czech-made, which narrows the biography considerably. When he wakes up, we don’t want him making poor choices.
I prop him against the pipe at the back of the doorway, turn his head to the brick, set his right hand across his stomach. From the mouth of the alley he reads as a man who’s used his break time unwisely.
That’ll do.
I step out of the alley and slip back into my alcove.
Two minutes later a black Mercedes S-Class rounds the corner. It’s a hired car—you can tell by the hubcaps, polished to fleet standards.
The driver pulls in tight to the curb, gets out, comes around the back, opens the rear door, and stands with one hand on the frame.
A woman climbs out. Dark hair pulled back, slim, fit, dark pants, a black jacket, and armed, given the bulk under the jacket. Her back is to me.
Hired security. Interesting.
And then she scans the street, one way, then the other, and turns.
Oh. No. Not to be dramatic, but you could say that my heart just stops right there in my chest. Really, I can’t breathe, and I’m not sure what’s worse, the terrible sudden blaze of heat under my ribs or the rush of weakness at seeing her.
So apparently fate isn’t listening to my promises.
Yes, it’s Ziggy Mattucci.
So that’s where she went.
I’ll explain later—but suffice it to say this woman might be the death of me someday.
If I don’t kill her myself.
Okay, not really. Problem: She’s so far embedded in my soul that losing her once has already cost me pieces of myself.
But I don’t slip out of the shadows, I don’t stalk up to her and growl, Where have you been? I stay put because I know, deep in my bones, that Oleg’s target just might have been the one woman I can’t seem to get free of.
Either that or it was the woman who climbs out after Ziggy.
Mid-forties, dark hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, no jewelry. She wears a camel coat, belted. Dark trousers. Flat shoes. And she holds a leather portfolio against her ribs.
She looks like a CEO.
This is interesting, don’t you think? Mostly because Ziggy is a spy.
Or at least, she was, last time I saw her—although granted, that was at her family’s estate in Tuscany, and with a few broken ribs and a busted wrist, the woman could hardly speak a full sentence without needing to sit down. So what in high heaven—
Later. I take a breath.
“Gracias,” the woman says to the driver, who’s gotten out and crossed over to her.
He hands her a folded sheet. “Su itinerario para manana.”
Your itinerary for tomorrow.
So, not a random hired car, but someone who works for whatever organization brought her here. Ziggy shuts the door, again casts a look down the street.
I duck back. No need to complicate anything.
Aw, it’s probably too late for that, isn’t it?
The doorman pulls the brass lever on the revolving door. “Bona nit, doctora.”
Doctor?
Ziggy follows her in, which is interesting. Maybe she has a team inside.