“Exactly. There's love for your fellow man. There’s love for your close friends, like Cal Stokes. And then there is deeper love. When that deeper love is placed in front of us, we must grab it and never let go. Not until it is our time to move on."

  Daniel nodded, but he was still trying to put all the pieces together.

  "We met for a reason, Daniel. You let me help you, which let me die full of joy because I got to help you. You gave me that gift. If you hadn't let me in, if you hadn't spent that time with me, I would've died a lonely, bitter man." Sarge placed a hand on Daniel's chest. "This power inside you is a gift, even if you often think it’s a terrible burden. Your friends are gifts, too. But until you receive your gifts freely and with an open heart, you will be troubled. Nothing will make sense. You will keep running from danger to danger, always skirting death, always on the edge of panic, never connecting with the joy and love in your world. Do you understand?"

  Daniel closed his eyes and saw his friends—Cal, Top, Gaucho, Brandon, and Neil—and in each snippet of memory, they looked at him with admiration, joy, and brotherly love. Next came snippets of strangers, people he had helped along the way and people who had helped him. The snippets played faster and faster until they ran out. Then his new favorite memory returned, the one of Anna telling him that she loved him.

  He opened his eyes. "I think I get it now.”

  "Then tell me.”

  "Not accepting these gifts in my life—my power and my friends—opened a hole of discontent in my heart. It opened a path for the beast, for my ego and pride and stubbornness. When I should have been embracing the day, I was always looking toward the future, ignoring what I'd been given. Anna told me before that she thought we should be together, and I denied her because I wanted to protect her. But it was a mistake. I wanted to be with her back then, and I still do now." He looked at Sarge. "Is it too late? Can I not take it back?"

  "You can't take back the original mistake, but you can always change your thinking." Sarge tapped the side of his head. "You know what they say about stinking thinking."

  Daniel laughed, and it felt good. When was the last time he’d allowed himself a sliver of happiness?

  "Nobody says you don't do the work," Sarge went on. "You do the work better than most. But it’s your heart that you must open if you want to move forward. Life won't be perfect, Daniel. You know you can't keep everyone safe. But look at me. Do I look like I'm in pain?"

  "No. You look perfect."

  "I've waited a long time to hear you say that," Sarge said with a grin. He put a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Your friends don't love you just because you are the best shot or the bravest man. They love you for you, Daniel Briggs. It's time for you to see it. And that beautiful girl? Well, she's loved you from the very first moment she met you."

  Another memory filled Daniel's vision, this time of a teenage Anna meeting his disheveled younger self. He felt the loving pull between them. Not attraction, but something deeper. She'd helped him, and he'd helped her.

  Daniel shook away the past and sat up straighter. "I'm ready to go back.”

  Sarge beamed. "There is so much I want to share with you, Daniel. But not yet. One day, we'll walk together again. Until then, know that you are loved forever and a day. Know that I’ll always be with you.”

  The old friends embraced, and then Sarge touched an index finger to Daniel’s forehead. Just like that, all light disappeared from the world, and he was sucked into darkness.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  DANIEL — GOOD MORNING KEY, FLORIDA

  The pain returned first. Everything else followed soon after. Anna’s face was still inches from his, and cold resolve swept through him as their eyes remained locked. Two heartbeats passed, and then Gray was pulling her out of the room.

  Once they were gone, Daniel turned his gaze on the man with the journal. He had yet to tell Claremont anything of true value, but there were plenty of instruments left on the table. Plenty of drugs in the cabinet, too. He should have been scared. Instead, peace settled over him, soothing his mind like a cool balm on irritated skin, and he saw everything for what it was. "You're scared.”

  Claremont looked up from what he was writing. "Excuse me?"

  "I said, you're scared."

  "I'm in a wheelchair, Briggs. Not much more I can be scared of."

  "You're scared that you'll never figure it out."

  "Figure what out, Briggs? Please stop being vague."

  Daniel's laughter shook the gurney. "You're never going to figure it out, ever."

  Gray reentered the room and gave Claremont a look. At the former gunny’s nod, Gray filled a syringe from a glass bottle and handed it over. Daniel kept laughing.

  "Let's see if a little truth juice will change your attitude," Claremont said. He swabbed Daniel's left forearm with an alcohol pad, right below where he'd been skinned, then injected the needle expertly into Daniel's vein.

  Still, Daniel laughed. It didn't matter what Claremont did to him. Nor did it matter how many times Gray looked at him with those longing eyes, like he wanted to either be him or kill him. Because Daniel was no longer alone. And with that knowledge, he could endure anything.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  NEIL — CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

  Neil didn't believe in failure. He took setbacks as personal challenges, and there were very few challenges that he hadn't overcome in life. He'd lost his parents in a terrorist attack, and then he'd lost himself in drugs and alcohol. It had been Cal's father, Colonel Stokes, who’d brought him back from the brink and given him a new family. A family that had slowly grown, person by person, piece by piece.

  One of the most important people in that family, Daniel Briggs, was now lost. Neil could not let him remain that way. He was doing everything in his considerable power to find their friend. Sometimes, that meant going without sleep or food. Both were time-consuming distractions.

  The team around Neil knew his habits, so without being asked, they brought him water, snacks, and an endless supply of energy drinks. Each time they placed something down next to him, he barely acknowledged their presence. Talking was also a time-consuming distraction. For now, grunts sufficed.

  Tension buzzed in the air around Neil, growing stronger with the passage of time. His gut told him that he was getting closer, and it proved right. He discovered his first major clue at almost exactly the same moment Daniel had his own epiphany.

  "Got him," Neil said, slamming a fist on his desk and getting looks from everyone in the room. They went back to their work as he dug deeper, clicking, scanning, sorting, brain whirring.

  Facial recognition had finally come through. And though the hit was just a glimpse at the side of a face, Neil's program told him with 89 percent accuracy that it was Daniel. He zoomed in on the picture and nodded. Yes, definitely Daniel. His hair was longer, his beard shaggier, but there was no mistaking the man getting into a car at Key West International Airport.

  "Key West. What is in Key West?” Neil murmured.

  He reached down to scratch his calf, just above where his prosthetic was attached. For some reason, that spot had been itching all morning. Which was odd, because his missing foot didn’t usually bother him. He was one of the lucky ones. He could afford the very best prosthetics, and he had the ears of the world’s top biotech engineers. Many of his suggestions were pending patents, and soon they would be added to the long list of intellectual property that he already owned.

  Neil continued scratching around his prosthetic, and his thoughts drifted down a dark path, wending deeper and deeper with each scrape of his nails. Through memories of torture and terror, of losing his foot and nearly being chopped to pieces or killed. His friends had saved him from the clutches of a man hell-bent on revenge that day. Revenge against Colonel Stokes’ legacy, SSI.

  A dreadful thought wiggled at the back of his mind. He cursed to himself, hating where his intuition was leading. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until he had followed it to a conclusion. Hopefully, nothing would come up. Then he could laugh at his paranoia.

  He found the folder on his computer. It included everything he'd salvaged from the Ponder Group’s servers before their headquarters had exploded in the mountains of Wyoming. The first file opened, and Nick Ponder—founder of the Ponder Group, arch nemesis of SSI, and Neil’s long-ago captor—stared back at him.

  "He's dead," Neil told himself, tamping down his rising panic. He scrolled through the old files until he finally remembered why he was there: to check for ties to Mason Gray. A couple of clicks set his computer to work. It didn't take long for three hits to pop up.

  The first was a transcript of a phone call between a Ponder Group recruiter and a Marine captain at Camp Lejeune. The captain had talked up a private first class named Mason Gray and told the recruiter to expect a call from him soon.

  The second was a transcript of a phone call between the recruiter and Gray. The recruiter had been eager for more snipers, but he had made no promises to Gray. Only offered to give him a chance.

  The third and final hit was where Neil struck gold. It was Gray's employment record with the Ponder Group. Nothing had been left out. It detailed his recruitment following an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, his training, his final vetting, and then his operational status.

  Evidently, Gray had done substantial time in the Middle East. He'd racked up kills, and the after-action notes from his superiors were effusive. Stone-cold killer, read one. Never says no, read another. Born to shoot, read a third. If Gray had stayed in the military, Neil had no doubt that his chest would have been covered in medals. Not only was he an outstanding sniper, but he’d also saved men’s lives.

  So why had Daniel written the man’s name on his bathroom mirror? How were the two connected?

  Neil dove into Gray's psychological evaluations. At first, nothing seemed amiss. The records were smattered with boring notes like, Fit for duty. No lingering effects of operational withdrawal or fatigue. But then a small comment caught Neil's eye, a comment that many would have missed. If he hadn’t known Higgins, he might've skipped over it, too.

  The comment read simply, Mr. Gray shows more detachment than his peers. And while that trait was likely a good thing for a killer, Neil filed it away to analyze later.

  Gray's employment record ended after three years. A handwritten note from Nick Ponder himself closed it out: Resignation approved by the undersigned. Gray and Claremont starting own sniper venture. Gave them $100K to start. Keep tabs. NP.

  Neil’s brow furrowed. Claremont . . . Claremont . . . Why does that sound familiar?

  He typed the name into his computer and got an instant hit. More pieces of the puzzle fell into place. According to another employment record, Benjamin Claremont had come to the Ponder Group at the referral of Gray. They’d met at Scout Sniper Basic Course while Claremont had been the NCOIC.

  Leaning back in his chair, Neil tried to process the new information at his disposal. Much to his dismay, his intuition had been spot-on. The Mason Gray who had attended Scout Sniper Basic Course around the same time as Daniel was connected to the Ponder Group. And so was Claremont, the man who had most likely trained Daniel at that school.

  So, what did it all mean? He couldn’t be sure. Not yet. But before he kept chasing clues, he needed to tell Cal about Daniel being in Key West. He would make the call and then maybe take a nap under his desk. Maybe. He didn't want to miss anything.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CAL — LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  "I'm headed to the airport now. Call me if you have anything else. Anything. You understand, Neil?"

  "Sure, of course. Safe travels."

  Cal ended the call and hustled back to his car. Hours had passed since Daniel had landed in Key West, so there was a chance that he was already gone. Even if that turned out to be the case, at least they were getting closer.

  He made the fifteen-minute drive to the private airport in under ten, and the jet was waiting when he pulled up. Inside, he nodded to the attendant and gave the pilots a thumbs-up. No words were exchanged. They already knew where they were going.

  Once in his seat, Cal pulled out his laptop and accessed the files that Neil had sent over. He took a second to view the photo of Nick Ponder. It served as a reminder of a job well done. In killing Ponder, they had taken out the trash. Cal’s only regret was not stopping the man before he’d taken a piece of Neil’s flesh.

  What if the same thing is happening to Daniel right now? The thought made Cal grip the arm of his chair.

  In need of distraction, he dove into Mason Gray's employment record. An impressive three-year history, to say the least. And not just in obvious places like Afghanistan and Iraq, but Syria, Pakistan, Iran, and various regions of Asia. On paper, Gray looked like a man who got the job done.

  How was he tied to Daniel? Were they friends or foes? Cal didn't think Daniel would have written the man's name on his bathroom mirror if they’d been friends, so he settled on foes.

  He read through Gray’s employment record twice, then retrieved Claremont's and studied it just as thoroughly. Like Neil, Cal didn't think it was strange that Gray and Claremont had gone off on their own. He knew plenty of people who’d left the Marine Corps or another service to start their own operations. In fact, his own father had done it with SSI and the Jefferson Group.

  But what did Daniel, Gray, and Claremont have in common apart from being snipers? He knew Claremont had been the NCOIC at Scout Sniper Basic Course while both Daniel and Gray had been there, but that didn't really mean anything. How many snipers had Claremont trained over the years? A hundred? Two hundred? More?

  The possibilities tumbled around in Cal's head. But without black-and-white proof, it seemed careless to put Gray and Claremont at the top of the list for Daniel’s disappearance. Anyone could be behind it.

  "Can I get you some lunch, sir?" the flight attendant asked when they reached cruising altitude.

  "Um, sure," Cal said, looking up. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, but he knew from years of experience that you could never predict what the coming days would hold. Better to fuel up when you could. "What do you have?"

  "We have a chicken tender salad or chicken Parmesan.”

  "I'll take the salad, please. And some coffee if you've got it."

  "Yes, sir. Coming right up."

  “Thank you.”

  Cal dragged the photos of Gray and Claremont next to each other on his screen. Gaze flicking back and forth between them, he tried to imagine what they were thinking and why they would want to reunite with Daniel Briggs. No answers came.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  MASON — GOOD MORNING KEY, FLORIDA

  Mason couldn't say what, but he sensed something had changed inside Briggs after seeing Anna. There was a new toughness to him. How that was even possible, Mason hadn’t a clue. But the more they plied him with questions, the more he resisted.

  No matter the pain, no matter the drugs, the Marine sniper gave away nothing. It was like a force field had been raised around his mind. And though Mason was loath to admit it, witnessing Briggs’ grit up close gave him chills. Not chills of fear or unease, but chills of envy, because the man’s fortitude was as exceptional as his shot. Mason finally understood why Claremont was so obsessed with learning what made him tick.

  Claremont completed another unsuccessful line of questioning and locked eyes with Mason. Mason motioned toward the door, and Claremont nodded.

  In the hallway, Claremont spun his wheelchair around to face Mason. "I told you before, and I’ll tell you again: I'm not stopping.”

  "I'm not telling you to stop. I’m telling you that I believe you now."

  Claremont's eyebrows shot up. "You see it?"

  He nodded. "The question is, how much can he take?"

  Claremont glanced back at the sweat-soaked man strapped to the gurney. "We'll be careful. We'll do it bit by bit, methodically. Have you gotten word about the woman?”

  "Yeah, the guys just texted. The storm is dying down for a moment, so they're going to be able to get out. You really think we should let her go?”

  "You haven't figured it out yet, have you?" Claremont asked, chuckling to himself.

  "You know I don't like your riddles, old man. Tell me."

  "We let her go. She runs to tell Briggs' friends. They come to his aid.” Claremont paused, like he was preparing to deliver some sort of punchline. “And then we find out if there's others like him."

  Mason caught on. "Birds of a feather . . .”

  "Exactly." Claremont’s eyes filled with excitement. "Imagine if Briggs is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what we could discover, what we could do."

  Mason nodded, and his own excitement began to build. While he wasn't a student like Claremont, he definitely saw the possibilities. Figuring out what made Briggs so special would help them recruit men just like him. And with men just like him, they could take on the hardest targets and the most brutal missions.

  He nearly salivated at the prospect. There was nothing he prized more than besting a tricky adversary, backing them into a corner and devouring their life force. It was why he had entered this trade in the first place. He was the harbinger of death and hell, and souls were his favorite treat.

  As a kid, he’d made a hobby of catching squirrels and torturing them until their little hearts had given out. No one had cared until he’d moved on to a bigger mark: the neighbor's dog. That’s what had finally gotten him in trouble. He'd been eleven years old, stupid, and careless.

  The psychologist he’d started seeing afterward had told his parents that he possessed violent tendencies. Mason still disagreed with the assessment. He was not a violent man. He simply had a unique, inexplicable hunger. When it rose within him, it was undeniable. It told him what it wanted, what it needed, and he obeyed. Simple as that. And over the years, he had learned to hide his hunger, much like the fabled vampire hiding in the night.

 

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