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  Max suppressed a laugh but couldn’t help smiling discreetly behind a hand.

  LT sighed. “The shit I have to listen to for one-point-two-five million dollars.” He rubbed between his eyes as though dealing with a severe migraine.

  “Get some rest, LT,” Max urged. “I’ll need that poker face of yours in the meeting.” He could brief his second in command on their client later.

  LT shook his head, comically small atop his thick, bullish neck. “No, I’m good.”

  Max nodded. “You know what’s best for you.”

  “Put in many a marathon session at the card table, my friend.”

  “I suppose that’s true enough. But I have a feeling you’re about to meet your shrewdest opponent to date. Be mindful of the stakes.”

  “Always.”

  Max nodded and then reclined his chair. Man’s strung tighter than a hillbilly’s banjo. Thankfully, Max didn’t have that problem. Like most Marines, he could sleep anywhere anytime, so long as he had nothing else to do. The swiveling, oversized lounge chair on the private jet served him as well as his bed at home. He drifted off into his waiting nightmares.

  * * *

  LT fumed in silence as Red ordered a double Jamison’s, neat, all for LT’s benefit. Like Gable, Red considered it his duty to needle LT whenever the opportunity arose. At least Gable didn’t take notice of Red’s order; he would have been screaming for another Bloody Mary if he had.

  On his tablet, LT studied the files Max had provided, stopping occasionally to switch windows and play a game of poker against the computer. He pulled his vape mod and tank from the inside pocket of his sports jacket and started puffing away. Diaz joined him, and the two began steaming up the cabin.

  After pronouncing the food on the breakfast cart unhealthy, Coach made the mistake of saying he was considering becoming a vegan. Gable and Red wasted no time pouncing on that.

  Meanwhile, LT tried to mentally drown them out as he vaped. He hated people in general, and the incessant talking battered him. Someone was always running their suck. On top of that, Red was too fucking sarcastic by half. Gable annoyed the piss out of him too, but a mutual respect lay buried between them, only to reveal itself when they were under fire. They’d gone through a lot of shit together, not that anyone would guess from the way they spoke to one another.

  When did it devolve into this? LT mined his memory, digging deep shafts as he searched for a clue to when things had changed.

  LT grew up in the Low Country of South Carolina. Half-Thai and half-white, he harbored strong Buddhist leanings courtesy of his mother. A gifted student of mathematics and statistics, LT had graduated in the top five percent of his class at The Citadel. He received a commission as an Air Force officer shortly after graduation and spent most of his military career working in G-2 intelligence.

  LT didn’t see much combat until his third tour in Afghanistan, when he was assigned as a liaison officer working with a company of Marine Raiders led by Capt. Max Ahlgren. Though he enjoyed the mental challenge of working in intel, LT found it child’s play compared to carrying out actual operations against the enemy. The crucible of combat felt liberating and thrilling at first, before it became addicting and mentally taxing. LT felt a grim satisfaction after every mission. He’d done his part to spread freedom and make the world safer, just as he’d been taught to do since his first days as a plebe at The Citadel, though with each mission, he found it increasingly harder to feel good about the work.

  The Air Force promoted LT to major as a reward for his faithful service and ordered him stateside to a position at the Pentagon. After one week at the Five-Sided Puzzle Palace, he realized just how little he’d known of the big picture on the War on Terror—a war that, by its very design, would never end. He resigned his commission four months later, fourteen years into his career.

  From there, it was a short hop to a higher-paying job as private security director, first working for casinos in Atlantic City and then on to Las Vegas. The jobs were cush; the action practically nonexistent. He became bored and disillusioned once again. At the end of the day, he preferred a good time and a stimulating life to the trappings of wealth.

  Then Max Ahlgren found him, put him back in the field, and crammed his wallet with blood-soaked cash. Times were good, were being the operative word. And now? The combat, the travel, the bodies strewn across the earth in the team’s wake.

  LT had seen enough and knew men in this profession didn’t age like scotch.

  One-point-two-five million. He watched Gable bullshitting with the team, pausing in his storytelling every now and then to spit dip juice into his empty Bloody Mary glass. If only I could be that oblivious. At forty-two, LT had one course of action open to him. Get it on one last time. Then get out.

  Across the aisle, Max stirred in his sleep. He jolted awake, staring at the ceiling and breathing heavily as if he’d just run several miles.

  Sleep, where our demons cavort.

  Max caught him watching. LT gave him a knowing nod and turned to gaze out the window at the patchy white clouds far below.

  Max and LT alighted from the rear of a Lincoln stretch limousine outside the headquarters of Greytech Industries. They had left their sidearms in care of the team who were holding up in a posh collection of suites at a five-star hotel downtown. Meanwhile, aware of Ms. Grey’s concerns about espionage, Max and LT anticipated a short arm inspection before security would clear them.

  The Greytech campus presented the public façade Max had expected: lots of well-manicured green space buffering soulless, boxy buildings of smoked glass. The grounds spoke of a progressive utopian workplace where the brightest minds came not to toil, but to create. It embodied the typical face of the tech sector, both necessary and symbolic. Also symbolic was the flag featuring the Greytech logo, a silver sun casting its rays across a black field, each beam of light morphing into a flying dove. Sixteen stories up, it flew below the American flag, an innocuous, ubiquitous symbol, boastful of its solar roots.

  Like the swastika, Max thought.

  LT followed his gaze. “Well, we’re not likely to forget where we are.”

  “Yeah, I’d say. Get ready for the VIP treatment.” Max subtly nodded at a tall man with a shaved head exiting the smoked-glass revolving door.

  Decked in a black suit, mirrored sunglasses, and wireless earpiece, the man intercepted them, extending his right hand at the last second. “Good morning, gentlemen,” declared the suit. “Michael Stewart, chief of Greytech security.”

  Max introduced himself and LT, pondering what government agency Elizabeth Grey had shanghaied a man that polished from.

  “Ms. Grey awaits,” Stewart announced. “I’ll process you through security as rapidly as possible.”

  Rapidly proved to take about fifteen minutes. Guards manning the security checkpoint in the lobby scrutinized their IDs and issued bar-coded visitor badges before marching them through a metal detector. On the far side of the metal detector, Stewart rejoined them.

  Then, four security guards flanked the trio, all tall muscular men sporting holstered Glocks, standard-issue buzz cuts, and body armor beneath their black uniforms. No rent-a-cops, these were hardened products of elite military and law-enforcement units. Not one of the seven men said a word as they stepped into a cavernous elevator that appeared to be fashioned of titanium and zipped only to the highest floor.

  The elevator doors opened directly into another security checkpoint guarded by four men and featuring a millimeter-wave scanner similar to the whole-body imagers found in airports. Before Max and LT could enter the beast, they first had their handprints recorded on a biometric scanner.

  Though even some in his line of work might have called Greytech’s security measures a bit excessive, such prudent precautions impressed Max. The CIA had trained him to enter office buildings undetected during his time at Camp Peary- aka The Farm. This security would have been a tough nut to crack.

  The security detail remained in box fo
rmation at the scanners while Stewart led Max and LT across a lobby of glass and gray Italian marble. Though tiny security cameras monitored both indoors and out across the Greytech campus, here at least two covered every square inch of this floor, the workspace of Elizabeth Grey and her top executives.

  Past the lobby, Stewart led them into a hallway with soaring glass windows on one side that provided panoramic views of the Seattle area. Along the opposite wall, the paintings, presumably priceless works of modern art, reminded Max of the finger paintings David had once enjoyed sticking to the refrigerator. Between them stood ebony doors featuring gilded nameplates identifying the office holders.

  They continued past a reception desk. The woman behind it, serious as a heart attack, uttered something into her headset as the men passed.

  Stewart put his palm on a biometric scanner outside a door labeled “BOARDROOM” and entered a six-digit code into a keypad, carefully shielding the numbers with his hand. A lock clicked, and he ushered them inside. The narrow space extended all the way to an exterior wall, glass from floor to ceiling. A glass table some thirty feet long, lined with plush leather chairs, dominated the space. At the head lay a selection of breakfast pastries and two urns of coffee. A small ice bucket containing three cans of Diet Mountain Dew sat conspicuously before the first chair on the left side of the table. Max sat, and LT took the chair to his immediate left.

  “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen,” Stewart said, already making for the door. “Ms. Grey will be with you shortly.” He departed. The door lock engaged behind him, effectively sealing Max and LT in the room.

  LT took a cup and saucer and poured himself some coffee. Max popped the tab on a soda. Certain that Elizabeth Grey and her team were assessing them at that very moment via cameras and microphones, both men made vacuous small talk as they waited, volunteering nothing.

  Max consulted his tactical black Tag Heuer watch. A half-hour had passed since his arrival. Typical. Most of their clients thought of themselves as potentates, which they were in their world. Their vassals’ lot was to wait upon them. Max had learned to hurry-up-and-wait back at The Basic School, but it remained a thorn in his ass.

  The lock clicked. The door opened.

  Max and LT stood.

  Elizabeth Grey strode into the room, imperious, another woman following her like a handmaiden. Simple elegance had never looked so rich. Her jet-black hair, cut in a stylish shoulder-length bob, neatly framed a countenance both patrician and tantalizing. Never one for poetry, words such as exquisite and lush nevertheless popped from Max’s brain as he watched the long legs beneath her black kidskin leather skirt propel her lithe figure confidently into the room. She awoke within Max primal instincts buried years before by his marriage. A thin silver chain studded with diamonds, her only adornment, winked from the collar of her steel-colored silk blouse. With so many physical assets in her favor, Ms. Grey didn’t need to rely on baubles for attention. Judging from the way her clothing hugged her curves, Max guessed she had received some cosmetic enhancements over the years. She did not merely live up to her photos—she made them a travesty.

  Max read iron determination in her gaze. Her eyes danced, a sparkling dark green—the color lakes back in Minnesota would assume beneath the late-afternoon sun. He found himself caught off guard by the allure of their near-imperceptible movements—eyelids opening wider; eyebrows surreptitiously raised for just an instant.

  “Thank you, gentlemen, for coming on such short notice.” Ms. Grey then introduced herself and the other woman, her assistant, Cynthia Hilliard. “Please, be seated.” She acceded the head of the table, Ms. Hilliard at her right hand.

  Another head-turner, Ms. Hilliard had blonde hair, cut daringly short and spiked on top. She would have commanded the attention of any room were it not for the overwhelming presence of her employer. She opened a small Greytech laptop on the table before her with quick fingers, ready to take minutes of the meeting.

  Elizabeth Grey cut the pleasantries appropriately short. “The non-disclosure agreement.” Thanks to Ms. Hilliard, a pair of tablets appeared in front of her guests at precisely that moment.

  “Understood,” Max replied, stifling his surprise that no legal beagles or officious department heads would be joining the queen and her lady-in-waiting.

  They want to keep this quiet.

  He scrolled through the agreement, a clone of dozens over the years. He and LT signed the electronic forms with a stylus and returned the tablets to Ms. Hilliard.

  Ms. Grey rose. “Our most sensitive scientific expedition has gone dark. The information we have is sketchy, but the terrain at the dig site is problematic for communication.”

  Sounds like someone went to a lot of trouble to upset your operation. Max asked, “How can we help?”

  Her eyes burned with resolve. “Lives may be at risk or even lost. Assess the site. Take any necessary actions to secure it and all research data. Locate our staff. Over the next two days, we will assemble another team of Greytech security personnel to maintain the site. They will arrive via helicopter within seventy-two hours of your arrival. Your team and our staff will evacuate at that time.”

  “What’s the nature of this expedition?” LT asked. “Why would you put people at risk this time of year?”

  She acknowledged him with a nod. “Mr. Thompson, the expedition is testing for a rare and potentially priceless material. Satellite imagery of the site shows no activity at Base Camp in the last twenty-four hours. Nothing is happening up there, and that is our gravest concern.”

  Max noticed she used the word we as opposed to I, in the manner of royalty as he scanned the large digital display showing the most recent satellite feed. “Why haven’t you contacted the authorities?” He already knew the likely answer but often asked such questions to gauge the response of his client.

  “Due to the sensitive and proprietary nature of the project, we naturally do not wish to involve the authorities, as their attention will invariably attract the prying eyes of the media.”

  Max wasn’t sure what to make of her answer. Was it merely the media she wished to keep in the dark, or did she fear government intervention as well? Depending on what exactly her people had discovered, Max could understand why she might.

  LT asked, “You tried to contact your team via satellite communications?”

  “Yes, of course.” She paused, a microsecond wavering of uncertainty. “A magnetic anomaly frequently disrupts communications from the site. We were sending helicopters regularly, courier and supply runs, a practice limited by the weather.” She adjusted the displayed image to show the helipad. “The last helicopter we sent.”

  “Why not wait a couple of days and send your own people to secure the camp? Why send us?”

  “We did. Two days ago. They haven’t reported back, and time is of the essence.”

  That got Max’s attention, though his and LT’s faces gave away nothing.

  Max asked, “Have you received any ransom or blackmail demands over the past few months? Any threatening emails or phone calls?”

  “No.”

  “Were there any identified threats assessed before the current situation? Any disgruntled staff?” LT asked.

  “None that we’re aware of,” Ms. Grey replied. “Initial assessments listed local wildlife as potential risks, bears, wolves, and mountain lions chiefly. Nothing more. And nothing new.”

  Max took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I understand your need to keep as tight a lid on this as possible, but anything you can reveal regarding your expedition can only be of assistance to us.”

  Ms. Grey pondered for an instant, then nodded. “Fair enough.” For just a moment, weariness settled over her like a puff of magician’s smoke, there and gone. “This expedition is checking the veracity of some older, inconclusive satellite scans that reveal the possible location of an undiscovered hyper-dense element that may potentially have ties to an advanced ancient civilization. Our research division found and extracte
d a sample for further study. They determined that the element is not radioactive or toxic, merely exceptionally rare, not just on Earth but within the known universe. Securing all research data on site—the computer hard drives in particular—is of paramount importance.

  “Be advised: your team is not cleared to enter the actual dig site. Your job is to secure the camp and the research data only.” She paused. “And rescue our staff, of course. The dig site is an extremely sensitive archeological area, not to be disturbed. Failure to heed this rule constitutes a breach of contract. Is that understood?”

  “Very well, we’ll stay out of the dig,” Max replied, though the stipulation raised a red flag in his mind.

  “As far as the camp, we leave that to your discretion,” said Ms. Grey. “An incoming weather front will cut off transportation just after noon tomorrow, so you need to arrive no later than tomorrow morning.”

  Ms. Hilliard passed two thick manila file folders across the table to Max and LT.

  Ms. Grey continued, “Those dossiers contain the latest satellite images of the area, along with the names and positions of all staff on site. We’ll need your answer in the next half-hour. Buzz the intercom on the wall when you’ve reached a decision. Have you any further questions?”

  “None,” Max answered. He locked his stare on hers and the two played eyeball poker again. He opened this time, but she turned to give LT a final once-over, refusing to play.

  “Very well. We’ll leave you to make your decision.”

  Ms. Grey and her assistant gathered their belongings. Ms. Hilliard led the way out of the boardroom. Ms. Grey sashayed out slower than she’d entered, hips swaying.

  Max smiled at her departing rear. There’s no mistaking that. He leaned close to LT, who wore a cryptic smile. “So, what do you say?”

  LT shrugged. He kept his voice just above a whisper. “Sounds like just another mission. How much do you think she’s leaving out?”