Jericho Falls, VA…

     United 457 arrived at seven-fifteen p.m.  

     Timothy Williams moved through the concourse toward baggage claim, scanning the crowd for other than friendly faces.

     COMMEX had taken every conceivable precaution to protect its agents. Still, there had been ‘accidents’: Delaney Curtiss, Beirut, stuffed into the trunk of his Saab, three bullets to the back of the head; Guy Tomasik, Hamburg, garroted in a hotel room; Gregory Jacobs, Tunisia, found in an alley outside a nightclub, his spinal cord severed.  Other than himself, there were but two left from the days of Delta Team Shadow Company–Jerrod Martin and Brady Thomas. Jerrod was stateside, somewhere in the southeast, but Colonel Thomas had all but disappeared.

     He grabbed the satchel off the conveyor and exited the terminal.

     “Marriott, Downtown.” He glanced from the cabby’s face to the driver’s license on the dash, then back at the man’s face, his hand tucked inside his blazer caressing the butt end of a .357 Magnum. Couldn’t be too careful. 

     The cab pulled up to hotel minutes later.   

     He leaned in through the side window and handed the cabby a twenty-dollar bill. “Keep the change. And there’s another fifty in it if you’re back here tomorrow morning, five-fifteen sharp.”

     “Yes, sir.”

      Williams strode up the steps and into the lobby.

     “May I help you, sir?”

     “I have a reservation: ‘Michelson, Anthony’,” he said, using an assumed name.

     She checked the computer, confirmed the reservation. “And, how long will you be with us, Mr. Michelson?”

     “Just tonight.” He gave her a tired smile, aping perfectly the road-weary look of any number of salesmen who waltzed through the hotel.

     Minutes later, he opened the door to his room, palmed the pistol, and entered. He checked the entire room, double locked the door, unpacked and walked into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. 

     Before leaving for dinner, he stretched a two-inch length of self-sticking, clear monofilament line from the base of the sliding glass door that led out onto the balcony to the metal casing surrounding it.

     Once in the hallway, he locked the door to his room and stretched a piece of clear line from the base of the door to its wooden jamb and then walked down the hallway. With telltales in place, no one could get into the room without his knowing it.

     He requested a corner table where he could monitor restaurant activity, ordered a Dewars on the rocks and a medium rare filet. The S&W .38 strapped to his leg was an easy reach.

    He finished dinner and ordered a Brandy. Relax, old boy, he thought. All our fabricated itineraries are transferred to and from the field via a sophisticated new program conjured up by Prescott’s team of programming wizards. Should someone backdoor the system, break the code and access the files, they’d end up searching for me sometime tomorrow in Albuquerque. Damn clever, those COMMEX boys. He chuckled and ordered a second Brandy.

     Christian Richards sat across the room, camouflaged by a mahogany bar. He laughed with the men at the table, dealing with a wrap up of the day’s business activities and dinner and drinks with his company’s newest franchisees.  His spiritual, disciplined self monitored Agent Williams’s every move.  

     Richards sized up his prey. He loved to watch them live out their paltry, feckless lives. It provided a perverse satisfaction knowing he held their destiny in his hands.

     Williams beckoned the waitress and ordered a third Brandy, a tired smile creasing his face.

     Sit back, relax Richards thought. He’d witnessed it many times, these displays of ignorant confidence. Williams’s defenses would soon break down and he would lose his combative edge. And these were Prescott’s finest? Why, they barely presented a challenge. The ultimate engagement, the final encounter, would come when the overture he’d orchestrated was complete. “Soon, now, Kenjisan,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Very soon!”

     Richards finished his tonic and lemon, excused himself, and walked to the bar. He put his arm around the waitress’s shoulder, a charismatic smile on his face. “Pardon me, Miss?”

     “Sir?”

     “Would you please get us another round when you get a chance?   The group right there.” He pointed toward his table.

     She turned her head and Richards moved his hand over the snifter of Brandy. The top of the onyx ring on his little finger sprang open and a thin stream of blue-green powder trickled into the drink, dissolving instantly. Visible for a moment, on the inside of his forearm, just above the wrist, was a tattoo, a crimson crescent, a miniature wounded moon.  

     “Sure, just let me deliver this drink and I will be right with you.” 

     Richards returned to his table, bid his new RichCo associates good evening and then went up to his room.

     An hour later he stood, stripped off his robe and walked into the bathroom where he donned a black bodystocking, a pair of black slippers and applied a thin layer of jet-black to his face.

     A pouch, attached by Velcro to the back of the bodystocking, held a pair of rubber surgical gloves, a long, flexible strip of stainless steel, a fifty-milliliter syringe and a small vile of clear liquid. To this cache, he added a roll of white surgical tape and three round, smooth objects that resembled the leather golf balls popular in the late eighteen-hundreds.

    He checked his watch: eleven forty-five. 

    He exited through the sliding glass door and dropped down minutes later onto the balcony outside Williams’s room. He rolled into a darkened corner, sat up and peered through the glass.

    Williams was asleep atop the bed, the drug having overcome him before he’d had a chance to strip off his clothes and crawl under the covers.

    Richards slid the flexible metal strip through the space between the double doors, pried the safety bar from its latch, tripped the lock switch and slipped into the room.

    He found a vein, injected the antidote and Williams’s eyes popped open. 

    Richards grinned, watching the man fight to focus on a world gone hazy. “Do you know who I am, Mr. Williams?” 

    He shook his head no, but his eyes said differently.

    “Yes,” Richards muttered. “Then, you also know why I am here, don’t you?”

    “Please.” The words were slurred through drug-numbed lips.

    “Don’t beg,” he said. “It’s unbecoming. Besides, you knew the risks going in.”

    Richards found enormous exhilaration in having the power of life and death over another human being. The greatest thrill did not always come from acting on that power, it came from simply having his foes live with his dominion over them. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times. 

    Williams shook his head, his eyes swollen orbs of fear.

    Richards cast him a cold-blooded smile. “Let’s get this over with.” He pulled one of the small, round objects from his pouch and attached a ten-inch length of waterproof fuse to its center. He spoke throughout the procedure, softly, reassuringly, much as a surgeon would speak to a nervous patient. “We call these little beauties Yak-Paks. A device my father taught me to make when I was a child. You do remember my father, don’t you?”

    “No.” Williams’s voice squeaked with fear.

    “No? Well, let me refresh your memory. Does Nepal ring familiar?” He stripped off three, six-inch lengths of surgical tape, attached one end of each strip to Williams left cheek.

    “The Mezzhandi?” Williams uttered.

    “Ah, yes, The Mezzhandi. You also remember the ‘Druid’, do you not?” Richards’s grin turned feral. “Well, I am Azrael, his son, and I have sworn a blood-oath to avenge him, to dispose of all those responsible for his death and destroy your precious COMMEX.”

    Williams struggled against his imminent demise.

    Richards cradled a Yak-Pak in the tips of his fingers. “We wrap the equivalent of one-third of a stick of dynamite into the dried and waterproofed skin of a yak. The seams are sewn together with gut. They are a powerful weapon, easily made and just as easily concealed. Now open wide.” He spread his hand across Williams’s face, his thumb and index finger applied vice-like against the pressure points of the jaw hinge.  

    Williams’s mouth dropped open and Richards stuffed the Yak-Pak home. He ran the fuse out of the corner of the man’s mouth and then stretched the tape tightly across his face, sealing the charge within its newfound womb. He stood and looked down into Williams’s eyes, his voice flat and indifferent. “It will be quick and painless, not like it will be with your Mr. Thomas.  Oh, no, he will suffer. I guarantee it.” He picked up a book of matches, struck one and lit the fuse. 

    Williams tussled with his ties, fighting the impending launch into the hereafter.

    “You have fifteen minutes to make peace with whomever or whatever it is you worship.”  

     Richards walked out of the room onto the balcony, climbed up the side of the building onto the roof and moved off cat-like to the opposite side of the hotel where he dropped down safely onto his own balcony. 

    Ten minutes later, he sat in the lounge, dressed in a beige running suit, sipping Tonic and chatting with the bartender.

    Moments later, the Yak-Pak detonated and Williams’s head exploded like a ripe melon.

    Specs of blood and bone and thick silky ropes of mucous painted the bedroom walls as the decapitated body convulsed on the crimson-stained bed.

    “Christ-in-the-night.” The bartender held onto the edge of the bar as the building seemed to sway on its foundation. He grabbed the phone, dialed the front desk. “What the hell was that?” 

    Richards smiled. A COMMEX agent’s life was cheap and pointless. Still, each successive killing left him feeling more liberated, more powerful and invincible. That, my friend, he thought, knocking down the last of his Tonic and lemon, is the resounding thunder of revenge. 

    As sweet as ever.

CHAPTER 1

Sedona, AZ…

      J. Brady Thomas jerked bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, blood sluicing through his veins and wiped away runnels of icy sweat that wet a three-day growth of beard.  

      He scanned the recesses of his Spartan cabin, knew well he’d find nothing more than personal demons lurking in the shadows. 

      “Sweet Jesus.” His throat was was dry, his voice raspy.

      Though he and Elizabeth Creighton had shared many warm and wonderful memories, Hilton Head Island was the dream he dreamed most often, the nightmare that had pervaded his nights, week after week, month after month, for over a decade. 

     The bomb that claimed her life had been meant for him alone; Liz but an innocent victim of his sordid past, of his association with the covert black ops team at COMMEX. Thank God she’d felt no pain. The coroner’s report stated that she had died immediately, feeling little more than a dramatic increase in air pressure and a moment’s searing heat as she was launched off the balcony into the cavernous maw of eternity.

    Within the month, he had burned his bridges with COMMEX commander, Colonel Tyrone Prescott, and moved to Arizona’s Oak Creek Canyon, a partial fulfillment of a shared dream.

      But what he could do nothing about was the never-ending goddamn guilt. If only he’d not stopped for the wine he might have been back in time to do something, anything for chrissakes. He might even have died with her, which he often considered infinitely preferable to the life he led without her.

      An hour later, he sat outside on the front steps, a cup of coffee in hand, and fought to shake off the effects of an on-going nightmare wherein he is always running toward her, trying to warn her, to save her. He still sees her as she was that night, as she will always be in the asylum of his mind, young and alive, filled with hope and dreams reborn.       

     At times like this, he felt only emptiness and silent resignation.

      He finished his coffee, drew heavily on a cigarette and leaned back on his elbows, his face turned toward a brightening dawn sky, his red-rimmed eyes squeezed shut.

      “I miss you, Elizabeth,” he said, her name a keepsake knotted in his throat.

#

      He eyed Brady, began a silent approach, moving cautiously out from the safety of the trees, his almost super-natural ability to elude and endure bred into him by centuries of persecution. 

      He was a formidable creature with bright yellow eyes, the kind of eyes that loom large in the darkened corners of childhood fantasies. He closed on the cabin in an ill-defined pattern, stopping briefly at predetermined points along the invisible perimeter of his territory, never once taking his eyes off the man sitting on the front steps.   

      The muffled sounds did not go unnoticed. “Morning, Lobo.” Brady opened his eyes and stared straight ahead, refrained from cocking his head toward the Mexican Gray wolf that stood twenty paces from him.  

      It had taken quite a while for the wolf to accept his presence in the valley. It had been a mere pup, likely an orphan, its parents killed by poachers, when he’d first spotted it.   

      The pup had proved early on to be a survivor. Brady often found it snoozing in the mid-morning sun beside picked over jackrabbit bones. He’d never attempted to care for it, nor had he tried to domesticate it, opting instead to let the wolf remain forever wild and set the guidelines for their symbiotic relationship.

      Now, on those occasions when his predatory companion dropped by, Brady found himself talking to it, speaking openly to it of those things kept long buried in his heart. And the wolf appeared to almost listen, to somehow understand.

      Lobo eyed him, and a low, raspy growl escaped its throat.

      Brady turned slightly, cast the animal an expressionless glance. “Come to visit for a while?” He spoke softly, not locking eyes, purposefully maintaining a posture that displayed neither dominance nor submissiveness. 

      They sat for a while in silence, two Alpha males of distinct species who shared a common bond: they had each lost a soul-mate. Brady had seen neither the female nor the pups for months. It occurred to him that both he and the wolf were destined to live out the remainder of their lives alone, as Alpha males are considered monogamous creatures, known to mate for life.

      Moments later, his shiny, black nose pointed skyward, Lobo trumpeted a series of short, ear-piercing howls, then turned and sauntered off into the trees.

      “Not today, huh?” Brady whispered. “See you next time, my friend.”

Safe house, Apache Dance, Az…

Jake Slaughter walked out onto the cabin’s deck for a few minutes of solitude after the long flight back from Quito.

He had already put the death of de Alvarez in Ecuador behind and it was time to move on. This was his stand-down, a momentary liberty from his covert black ops Delta team and the operational control of the Joint Special Operations Command.

He breathed deeply the cool night air and drew hard on a Sam Adams longneck.

Wine-red alpenglow washed the crenelated peaks of the Tucson Mountains and the vast Saguaro forests of the Sonoran Desert. The renowned Desert Museum was visible from the house perched high up Golden Gate Mountain, south of Gates Pass Overlook.

“Aphrodisiac for the senses,” he muttered, his husky voice the upshot of an arid climate and one too many rum-soaked cigars. “Surely the Almighty scooped out this place on one of his better days.”

He scanned the open vista, the stands of desert scrub, Saguaro and Cholla cacti crowded into the valley below as he listened to the melodic hum of nectar-feeding bats, the din of Hawk moth and other foraging insects. In the distance a Javelina or Coyote ran down an evening meal, as myriad bird species burrowed into the safety of their nests for the night. His eyes crinkled above a smile and he finished off his beer. 

His personal phone slapped him out of a sound sleep at seven the next morning. He sat up, his cracking knees a bitter reminder that he was aging by the minute, the pounding in his head an indicator that he was getting a bit long in the tooth to down a half-dozen longnecks and still function at peak proficiency the following day.

“Hello.”

“Jake? It’s Michael in New York, did I wake you?”

 “You’re nothing if not consistent, Mikey.”

“Hell, it’s ten o’clock here in the real world, been at it for three hours already.”

“Right.” Michael Franks was Jake’s long-time book editor at Simon and Schuster in New York. “What’s up?”

“Got your message about heading off to Beaufort. I received your photographs and sent them off to be scanned, but can you get the final written draft of the book to me before you go?”

In his precious spare time, Jake made photographs, dozens of them over the past couple of decades. The book in question was the third in a series of six, all showcasing intimate landscapes of the western desert and the southeast Atlantic coast.

The books both entertained and informed, qualities his readers especially liked. He normally tripled his advance, a quality his publisher relished.

“I’ll have it on your desk by the end of the week, Mikey, will that make you happy?”

“Wish all my clients were like you, Jake.”

“No, you don’t. You put up with me because I make you a crapload of money.”

“I thought I just said that.”

Jake chuckled. “Goodbye Michael.”

“Look Jake, I have to ask one more time. Have you given any further thought to the book signing tour? It’s been a long time since your east coast fans got a peek at your mug.”

Jake rubbed a fingertip along the scar on his stomach. “I don’t handle crowds very well, you know that.”

“Understood, but do me a favor and at least think about it, okay.”

“All right, Mikey, so long.” 

What the hell, he was going to head home for a few weeks to check out the new family digs, first time is some years, so maybe a tour wasn’t a bad idea.

Outside he heard a car pull up and its doors open. He looked down and waited. The envelope slid under the door and the car sped off moments later. “Damn,” he muttered. The envelope would contain an encoded and encrypted flash card detailing his next assignment.

He poured a cup of coffee and walked out the back door, the early morning air redolent of musk, sandalwood and honey. He pulled the invitation he’d received out of his jeans pocket:

It’s time, Beaufort High’s class reunion, June 7-9 at Lancaster Hall, downtown Beaufort!

Regrets only, please!

“Regrets? Hell yeah, I’ve got a few.”

    CHAPTER 3                      

South Carolina…

Jake was going home.

He crossed the border into South Carolina, stopped for gas and then continued south on I-95 toward the coast, toward Beaufort and the Lowcountry, toward the family home on the Morgan River.

Six PM and the mid-June sun cast biased shadows across the flat expanse of highway. The driving was effortless and he sang along with the 60’s oldies on 98.5, The River, out of Beaufort.

Ninety minutes later, he motored through downtown Beaufort, fingers tracing the scar on his stomach and recalling fellow writer, Robert Fulghum’s, words: ‘A high school reunion is not a reunion with other people as much as it is a reunion with yourself. Daily, we reunite with self in the mirror. The high school reunion is an invitation to look into a larger mirror’.

He parked and locked the car and walked through the door of Plum’s, a popular sandwich and ice cream bar.

He glanced around and at the eclectic mix of nautical motif and rock and roll memorabilia that still decorated the place: Shrimp nets shrouded the walls and sea shells, starfish and horseshoe crabs sat on worn lobster traps. Plastic Elvis, dressed to the nines, legs askew and head bobbling still occupied center stage atop an old-fashioned Wurlitzer jukebox. 

 “Jake?”

He turned, his mouth turning up at the sight of his old friend. “Hey, Gary.”

Gary Stanton, like his father before him, was the Slaughter family lawyer, the keeper of the keys and the captain of finance and real estate holdings. He was Jake’s age, a close friend throughout high school, but looked ten years older, with a round jovial face, thick gray hair and bushy eyebrows pasted over intelligent brown eyes.

“Good to see you again.” He pumped Jake’s hand. “Been too long, twelve years or so, right? For your folks thirtieth anniversary? You’re still looking good, tan and fit.”

Jake smiled. “You as well, Gary, but like me a bit heavier and a touch of gray.”

Gary spread his arms in a conciliatory gesture. “Goes with the territory. Hell, we’re all just grown-up versions of who we once were, right? You’re going to see that up close and personal at the reunion.”

Jake grinned. “Thanks for all you’ve done while I’ve been away. I mean it.”

“Hey, that’s my job and you’re my friend, Jake. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

It had been Gary to whom Jake had sent money, a lot of it over the years, and his instructions had been specific: Buy up, using a nom de guerre, waterfront parcels along the rivers in and around the lowcountry and then enlarge and remodel the family’s compound to his parent’s liking. As a result, the Slaughter’s real estate holdings had increased substantially over the past decade.

“Well, Gary said. “Give me a minute to hit the restroom and we’ll be on our way.”

Jake nodded, ordered a cup of coffee and then looked around the restaurant. Teenagers laughed and kissed and hugged in the booths, hands running over faces, through hair and fanning south toward intimacy. He tried to remember the last time he’d felt that young. Part of him envied them, setting off down the road on the great adventure that stretched out before them.

Another part didn’t, for he’d often found that road strewn with speed bumps and hurdles.

“Right, then.” Gary returned. “All set?”

They caught up with each other during the ride out to the Slaughter compound, enjoying the warmth of the late-June evening laughing and joking at shared memories from their youth. Gary didn’t mention Jesse and Jake didn’t ask.

“So, have you heard from your folks, yet?” Gary said.

“Last week. Should roll in around the Fourth of July.”

“Going to be nice having the Slaughter clan home again. How about your sister, Sharon? Still up in Indianapolis, isn’t she? Heard from her?”

“She, Tom and the kids will be here for Thanksgiving.”

They rolled through the gated entry to the compound twenty minutes later.

Gary shut off the car and turned in his seat. “Okay, here are the keys to the beach house. Sarge would have been here, but he’s still up in Charleston and won’t be back until tomorrow. I had the place freshly painted and stocked with a few staples. Oh, and there’s Cabernet and Chardonnay in the cupboard, Sam Adams and Coors longnecks in the fridge and a bottle of twelve-year old Macallan on the kitchen table.”

Jake smiled. “Thanks for everything, Gary.”

“Anytime, my friend. I’ll see you at the reunion, then?”

Jake nodded.

The Slaughter Family compound, located on the northeast tip of Dataw Island, consisted of a five thousand square foot main home, a carriage house, two exquisite guesthouses and three hundred feet of surf, sand and foam bordering the deep blue of the Morgan River and St. Helena Sound.

Then, there was the beach house, Jake’s house. The home in which he’d grown up had been expanded and redesigned over the past ten years, with spacious, open rooms, airy cathedral ceilings and an exquisite floor-to-ceiling flagstone fireplace.     

His eyes lit up as he walked toward it, a lone sentinel on the point of a thin tongue of sand jutting out into the river.

He stopped at the bottom of the steps, regarding the graceful wrap-around porch, and in the dying light saw himself as a child growing up beside the river, complete with its still-life summer scenes of golden marshes and brilliant sunsets. Living here as a child had always turned to boating, shrimping, fishing and relishing the pristine Lowcountry vistas that still captured the hearts of painters and photographers alike.

Beaufort and its surroundings held a special kind of magic for him and he felt inclined to be captured all over again.

He walked up the steps, turned the key, opened the massive oak door and walked in.

The large loft bedroom, as he’d instructed, overlooked the great room and faced a massive stone fireplace. He went upstairs, unpacked, glanced around and smiled. The place looked damn good, just like he’d envisioned. Felt damn good, too.

Downstairs, he poured two fingers of Scotch over a single ice cube, then walked outside, strolled down to the beach and out to the end of the long, wooden dock.

Moonlight glittered on the jet-black water and the air smacked of summer: brine and earth and the tang of ebb tide. He sat down, feet dangling in the tepid water, sipped Scotch and listened to the evenly paced rhythm of his heart. 

The cool evening breeze still whispered only one name: Jesse Cochrane.

Okinawa…

            He’d come to Okinawa the first time because of Prescott.  And, damn if it wasn’t Prescott who had brought him to Otaka’s doorstep yet again. 

            Two nights later, sporting black cotton pants, a black pullover and black rubber-soled slippers, Brady stood on the balcony of his hotel room waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon.

            He pulled out of the parking lot a half-hour later and sped off into the hills as darkness enveloped the capital city of Naha. 

            He scaled the compound’s wall and dropped down into a plush, colorful courtyard. He surveyed the grounds, recalling the days when he and Otaka’s other students had maintained these sculptured flowerbeds and elegantly tiered garden pools as they set off together on their great Eastern adventure. 

He crept up to the Dojo and peered through the window.  Sensei Otaka sat unmoving in the center of the floor, forearms resting on his knees. Three students lie prone on the floor in front of him.

            Brady slipped through the window and rolled into a darkened corner of the room.

            “They have mastered the art well, have they not, Kenjisan?”

            “Yes, Sensei.”  Otaka had not lost his touch.  “Reduced breathing technique. Tell me, Master, how long..?”

            “Since you entered the room, my son. There are but four bodies here, yet I sensed five distinct heartbeats. The one, though out of harmony with the rest, was at once familiar. One does not forget his prized pupil even though years pass between meetings.” 

            Brady walked to the center of the Dojo, bowed respectfully and sat down cross-legged. “Master, we must talk.” 

            “Hai, Kenjisan., I have been expecting you.”  He excused the students and they rose in unison and left the room.

            “Then, you have been reading the papers from America, Sensei?”

            “Hai.”

            “And you are aware of the Company’s current dilemma?”

            “Hai, I am.”

            “Then you must tell me all you know of the one called Azrael.” 

            “How have you happened upon this name, Kenjisan?” 

            Brady spoke of his life in Arizona and of Ally, which brought a smile to Otaka’s face.  

            “One day, a young woman showed up, Erika Kingston. Supposedly on assignment from National Geographic, but from the beginning there was something disconcerting about her. I can’t put a finger on it but Ally felt it too. I eventually dug out equipment from the old days and eavesdropped on one of her phone calls. Take a stab at who was on the other end of the line?”

            “Hai, Prescott.”

            “You know of her, then?”

            Otaka nodded.

            “And?”

            “You’ve been away from COMMEX for a long time, Kenjisan, since Elizabeth’s death. What you now ask could put you back into the thick of it. Are you prepared for that?”

            “Hai, Otakasan.” He looked into his master’s face. Although he was some eighteen years older than when Brady had left his tutelage, the essence of life still danced in the depths of the old man’s ink-black eyes.

             Otaka appeared lost in thought then said, “Azrael was born to the dark path. The murder of fellow human beings, he revels in it, craves it as one craves the essence of the Poppy. What he does is repugnant. Not just legally wrong, but morally wrong.”

            “Tell me what you know of him, Sensei. Who is he? Where did he come from?”

            “Out of your past, my son. There is a coldness inside him, as if he’d been born to dwell in a cave atop an ice-bound mountain. A heartless man who lives a blood oath, to avenge his father’s death.” 

            “I don’t understand?”

            “Azrael,” Otaka paused, then added, “is the Druid’s son.”     

            “Sweet Jesus,” Brady whispered.

            “He searches relentlessly for you and is a determined, capable foe.” 

            Brady was stunned. “He knows then?”

            “Hai, he knows that COMMEX and specifically you are responsible for the Druid’s death. 

            Brady’s questions were aimed at himself. “Then, I am responsible for the deaths of those agents? They were pawns, used to get to me?” 

            “Azrael is no neophyte, his knowledge of the ‘The Way’ is formidable, Kenjisan.”

            “Certainly, he is not a former student?”  

            “No, he was trained by Master Masaaki Cho. My brother once, now a sworn enemy.”

            Silence passed between them, then Brady said, “I must leave, Sensei. I’ve difficult choices to make.”

            “Hai.”

Brady stood and bowed.

            “Kenjisan, the choice is yours alone. Once made, you must be prepared to bear consequences that may adversely affect lives other than your own.”

            “I understand.”

            “Is it not sometimes better to walk away from such a choice?” 

            Brady smiled. “You test me still? To walk away also constitutes a choice, does it not? A choice that carries with it yet another set of consequences?”

            “You have learned much, my son.”

            Brady bowed his head low, his chin touching his breastbone, exhibiting abiding respect. “I had a great man as my teacher.”

            Otaka’s eyes moistened.

            “Goodbye, Master. I will visit again, soon.”

            “Hai, Kenjisan.”

             Brady walked out the door and strode across the compound toward the front gate.

             Warm tears welled in the old man’s eyes. “If not in this world then surely in the next,” he muttered.

            Seiji stepped from the shadows and stood next to Otaka.

            “Follow him, my son. Stay close, closer than ever before.”

            “Hai.”

            Otaka’s voice was weary. “We near the end of a long journey and these are turbulent times.”

            That night, Brady examined the man staring back at him from the mirror. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered, wondering how middle age had crept up on him a whole lot sooner than it should have. “Well, old man, what in hell do we do now?” It seemed, at times, as if the fates had conspired to ensure that his path in life be strewn with rocks and surrounded by mountains that defied human passage. 

            And, always, there was loneliness. 

            He’d been left at the orphanage when he was six months old.  

            Years later, as a ward of the state, he spent time reading and studying the discipline of Isshin-Ryu, the traditional Okinawan karate style. 

            Then, COMMEX, the chance encounter that altered the path of his life. Komichi! 

            Prescott had intervened when Brady was at his most vulnerable. Fresh out of the Army, and from a run-in with Elizabeth’s parents, he was a young man searching desperately for a place to vent his anger. And Prescott had leveraged that anger, sweet-talked him and sold him on joining Shadow Company, couching it as a ‘golden opportunity’ to do something for his country. Through the deft insertion of phrases like pride, duty and patriotism, he had convinced Brady that COMMEX offered untold monetary remuneration as well as the freedom of thought and action not available in commerce and industry or in other branches of government.

            And Brady bought it all, no questions asked. What he had done for COMMEX was done out of duty, out of respect for his flag and loyalty to his country. He became a mercenary, a soldier for whom there was only winning and losing, living and dying. He had carried out assignments so unspeakable that not even the military sanctioned or acknowledged them.    

            He’d been a soldier without uniform, without credentials or identity living in a self-imposed purgatory where, with each assignment, his target became every broken promise and every shattered dream he’d ever known. And it had shaped his life for ten long, bloody years.  

            He snatched up his suitcase. “Well, I escaped COMMEX’s tentacles once and I’ll be damned if I’ll get caught in its grasp again. Azrael can go straight to hell and join his old man. Besides, he thought, I live in Arizona where neither he nor the Mezzhandi could find me in a hundred years, right?

 

CHAPTER 3

 At eight-fifteen the following morning, COMMEX Headquarters, an inconspicuous, three-story brick building was a hive of activity.   

 Lt. Marcus Kinnard strode by Mrs. Periwinkle’s desk, his eyes riveted to the door leading into Colonel Prescott’s office.

 “Excuse me, Lieutenant.” Her voice was cool, patronizing.  “The Colonel is on the phone and cannot be disturbed.”

 “Not to worry, Periwinkle,” he said, in his patented machine gun voice. “You just keep answering phones, taking messages and making coffee like a conscientious little woman, okay?  Let the Colonel and me worry about running the organization.”  

“Up yours,” she whispered, casting him a homicidal grin. 

Lt. Marcus Kinnard, second in command to Prescott, was a small, ratish-looking man, a badly preserved fifty-one, with a drinker’s purple veined face, a nose the color and size of an overly ripe apple and beady black eyes. Mrs. Periwinkle thought him a poisonous little man, secretly wondering how many times a year he shed his skin.  

Kinnard opened the door and waltzed into Prescott’s office.

The Colonel glanced up, his eyes filled with a quiet fury and pointed to a plush leather chair.

Kinnard sat down, struck up a Chesterfield and waited for Prescott to end his phone conversation.

“Yes, sir,” Prescott said, his voice controlled and expressionless. “The wheels are in motion even as we speak, sir. Lt. Kinnard has just arrived and my niece should be here any moment.”  Kinnard sucked on the cigarette and blew a large white smoke ring toward the ceiling.

“Of course, sir,” Prescott said. “I’ll keep apprised of our every move. Good bye, sir.” He muttered as he hung up the phone, “Oh my, yes, sir. But of course, sir”

“I just heard about Williams,” Kinnard said. “How, Colonel?  How in hell could anyone have known he was here at the Marriott?”

“I don’t know, Marcus. We’d taken every conceivable precaution.”

“We’re certain it was Azrael?”

“Forensics confirms it was a Yak-Pak.” Prescott cradled his head in the palms of his hands, thick fingers toying with the silver wisps sprouting from a balding pate.

“Well, then, there can be only one answer. Either Azrael or someone within his organization has happened upon the Key and accessed the computer.”

Prescott’s head snapped up. “I don’t believe that for one minute. We’ve got a foolproof system here. The damn Key and code changes daily. If someone did manage to get hold of it, without the proper code they’d end up hiking a false trail.”

“You have a better explanation, Colonel?” Kinnard said, thin colorless lips pulled back in an oily sneer.

“No, and I’m not about to waste time looking for one. The President has ‘strongly suggested’ that I remedy the situation straight away. So, I’m going to put this to bed once and for all. I’ve asked Mrs. Periwinkle to have Erika report to my office.”

“Somewhat drastic, Colonel.” 

“Drastic times and drastic measures, Marcus.” The intercom on the desk buzzed. “Yes?”  

“Ms. Kingston to see you, sir.”          

“That’s fine, send her in please.”

Erika walked into Prescott’s office, running a towel through her mop of blond hair. “I was in the middle of a workout at the health club, Uncle T, but from Ms. Periwinkle’s tone, I assumed immediately meant skip the shower. 

“That’s right, my dear.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Please, sit, we’ve much to discuss.”

“Lieutenant.” She sat, the patented Kingston pout enhancing her sensuous underlip.

“Erika.” Black pupils set into rheumy, yellow orbs traveled the length of her body, then returned to her ice-blue eyes.

Prescott knew that Erika had long been the focus of Kinnard’s warped fantasies but chose to ignore it. Regardless of his penchant for young women, preferably slim and trashy, as well as an insatiable appetite for what might be considered deviant sexual practices, Marcus Kinnard was a resolute, energetic employee, indispensable to the organization.

 “All right, Prescott said. “Down to business. Erika, I’m sure you’re aware that we’ve had a rash of ‘accidents’ lately.”

“If you mean the loss of several agents, then yes, I believe everyone’s aware of the problem.”

“Well, it appears we’ve lost another.”

“My God. Who? How?”

“Tim Williams.”

“You’ve heard about last night’s explosion at the Marriott?” Kinnard said. 

“Yes. Has someone claimed responsibility?”

Prescott leaned forward, his forearms on the desk. “No, but the work has a unique signature.”

Erika gazed into her Uncle’s slate-gray eyes, waiting for him to get to the point.

“Lieutenant Kinnard and I have orders to put an end to this dilemma and we need your help.”

“Sir?” Her forehead wrinkled. 

Prescott had never before asked for Erika’s help, had always kept her on the periphery, away from the big picture, offering only an occasional, cursory glimpse into the heart of COMMEX.

“We’ve reason to believe that a group called the Mezzhandi is responsible,” he said. “They are led by a ruthless killer with an appropriate moniker: Azrael.”

“Mezzhandi?” she murmured, with a quizzical look

“The Mezzhandi are not unfamiliar to us,” Kinnard interjected. “Its members have been monitored by the government for years, long before COMMEX became involved.”

“Mezzhandi,” she whispered. “Scuttlebutt has it they were disbanded by a team of agents known as ‘Shadow Company’? But there are no files, either in the computer system or in the vault that contain a single reference to ‘Shadow Company’.”

Prescott nodded. “I purged the file years ago, though I still have digital backup.  Best goddamn team of agents we ever put together.”

“All right then, Uncle, what can I do to help?”

“We need you to locate someone for us,” Kinnard said.  “Someone,” he added with a smirk. “Who has made it perfectly clear he wants never to hear from us again.” 

“I don’t understand?” She continued to stare at her uncle.

“The gentleman the lieutenant refers to was once the leader of ‘Shadow Company’. A ‘wet’ agent, one of the most lethal the intelligence community ever produced.”

“Do I know of him?”

“I think not.” Prescott leaned back in his chair, folded his hands in his lap and stared down at the tips of his shoes. This was dangerous territory. “His name is Brady Thomas. Known as Kenjisan within the intelligence community. He’s since left us. You see, there was a terrible accident…”

For the next two hours, Prescott and Kinnard recounted the history of the Mezzhandi, of ‘Shadow Company’s’ involvement in its demise and the elimination of the Druid. Finally, he detailed the unfortunate incident that caused Brady Thomas to leave COMMEX.

“So,” Erika said. “Our agents are being systematically killed off by the Mezzhandi, a group thought disbanded by Shadow Company and you believe the only way to stop the bleeding is to bring this Brady Thomas back into the fold?”

“Exactly,” Kinnard said.

“But you’ve already told me he wants nothing to do with us as he blames us for his fiancé’s death. What makes you think we can change his mind?”

“The Mezzhandi, Erika.” Prescott said it deliberately. “The Mezzhandi and Azrael, the Druid’s son, were responsible for Elizabeth’s death.”

Prescott was renowned for his ability to coolly and assuredly intertwine threads of truth and fiction into the fabric of a story. Erika was a living example of his ability to manipulate facts. After all these years she still suspected nothing.

“I see,” Erika said. “Sounds like a simple case of revenge.  Why not try to contact him yourself? Explain the situation. I don’t understand why you need me?”

“Oh, but that it were that simple, Erika.” Prescott shook his head. “Unfortunately, we face two very real problems. First, although we know Brady lives in Arizona, somewhere in the Verde Valley, most likely the Sedona area, we’re not sure of his exact whereabouts. Second, as Lt. Kinnard has alluded to, he’s not likely to be what you would call approachable.”

“What the Colonel is saying,” Kinnard interjected. “Is that Mr. Thomas would not welcome us back regardless of the reason. If he gets an inkling that we’re involved, he’ll burrow in so deeply that we’ll never find him.”

“Right,” Prescott added. “But he doesn’t know about you, Erika, has no idea you’re affiliated with us. That makes you, my dear, our ace in the hole.”

“All right, Uncle, shoot, what do you want me to do?” 

Prescott turned and logged onto his computer terminal. “I want you to go home and pack. You’re going to Arizona.”

“Arizona?” Her bright blue eyes sparkled as she watched him bang out a memo.

“Now.” Prescott spun on the chair, stared at her. “Listen carefully. The success of this mission is entirely dependent upon you following everything Lt. Kinnard and I have to say to the letter, understand?” 

“Yes, sir.”       

He handed her a memo and a check. “On your way out, stop by petty cash.”

“Fifty-thousand dollars?” 

“You’ll need to pick up a few items before you leave. I want you to stop by The Photo Emporium. Buy the best equipment on the shelf, strictly first-class stuff: cameras, lenses, light meters, everything a professional would take on assignment. You know what’s required. You’re the finest photographer we have on staff.”

“Thanks, but why not take what we already own?”

“He’d know,” Kinnard said. “Every piece of COMMEX equipment has an asset code etched onto it. He doesn’t miss a trick.”

She looked at Prescott. “I…”

“Stay with us, it will all fall into place. He handed her a first-class ticket to Phoenix. We’ve left your return flight open for now.  No telling how long this assignment will last. Okay so far?”

“Yes.”  

“Good. Now, once you get to Phoenix, rent one of those fancy RVs. Then, head north toward Sedona. We’ve reserved a secluded campsite for you outside of town.” He rifled through a file. “Here we are, the Manzanita Campground. Here are your papers.” He handed her a manila envelope. “You’ve already been cleared through appropriate state and federal agencies.”

“This is my cover? I’m on assignment from National Geographic? In the Verde Valley to photograph rock formations for an upcoming feature on northern Arizona?”

Prescott nodded. “Once you’ve settled in, it’s business as usual. Act as if you actually are on assignment.”

“And?”

“That’s it, my dear. Enjoy yourself, good food, lots of sun and from what I understand, spectacular photo opportunities. Oh, and snoop around a bit, name drop. You know the drill.”

“All right, then what?”  

“You wait. It will be only a matter of time before Brady finds you.”

“And, when he does?”

“Well.” Kinnard pulled at his lower lip. “That’s the tricky part. You must do your damndest to convince him that you truly are there at the request of the National Geographic. But we also need you to slip up on occasion.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, Erika,” Prescott said. “We’ve already told you what’s likely to happen should Brady find out we’re searching for him. At the same time, as strange as this sounds, we want him to realize just that. But it is absolutely vital that he figure it out on his own. But slowly, we can ill afford to be overly zealous or conspicuous.”

“So, I drop subtle nuggets?”

“Exactly, but keep them very subtle and very infrequent. You’re to impart, over time, only enough information to make him suspicious, to get him to make a move and contact us directly.”

“And believe me,” Kinnard added. “If we pull off this off, Mr. Thomas be all over us when he figures it out.”

“All right,” she said.

“One last point,” Prescott said. “You’ve been fully trained here, so use that knowledge to your advantage. But please, take your time and be very careful. You need to leave a trail, but do not make it appear as such. Brady’s a damn bloodhound, understand?”  

“Yes, Uncle, this guy sounds like an interesting man.”

“A thoroughly dangerous one, Erika, a man of enormous conviction. Regardless of your training, I want you out of there and on a plane home at the first sign of trouble.”

“I understand.” 

“Well, I think that’s about it. Any questions?”

“None that I can think of at the moment.”

“All right, then. Stay in touch with me daily.”

“Yes, sir.” She stood, leaned over the desk and kissed Prescott on the cheek.

“Please, be careful.” He was genuinely concerned.

“I promise, Uncle T. Hey, I’ve been trained by the best, right?”

“What would you have me say?” 

“Is the letch staring at me again?” she whispered.

“Of course, my dear. You’re going to be the death of the man, but you already know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, I hope so.” She smiled impishly. “I’ll check in when I get to Sedona.” She blew him a kiss and walked out.

“Well?” Kinnard turned back to his boss.

“Well, what?”

“Do you think she can pull it off?”

“I believe so.” His smile broadened, as it did whenever he became nervous or agitated. “Then again, it doesn’t really matter, does it? One way or another, Brady will come back here. It’s only a matter of time. Hell, that’s why I initiated this strategy all those years ago, isn’t it? In anticipation of a moment, a situation, precisely like this? I knew the day would come when we would require Mr. Thomas’s extraordinary talents in order to save COMMEX.”  

“Oh, I understand, Colonel,” Kinnard said. “But I’d certainly not want to be in your shoes should he have to be told the truth about Ms. Kingston.”

“Well, Lieutenant,” Prescott said and sat back in his chair and cleared his throat. “let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, shall we?”

Alanna opened the General Mercantile at precisely seven-thirty, a tradition started by her parents that she’d carried on since inheriting the store.

She poured a cup of coffee and turned toward the door, the red clay chimes announcing her first customer. Her smile blossomed as Brady strode across the floor.

“Morning, good-lookin’.” He smiled and handed her his grocery list.

She leaned over the counter, her face turned up. “What? No good morning kiss? Remember last week at your place? Couldn’t wait to give me a kiss and then some if memory serves.”

“Ally.” He glanced around the store. “Someone could hear you.”

She walked away grinning over her shoulder. “You’ve got to loosen up, let your hair down.”

Her slim hips moved easily beneath the skin-tight Levi’s and open-heeled sandals accentuated her long, shapely legs. Her lack of inhibitions both intrigued and embarrassed him.

The only daughter of an Anglo father and a Tonto Apache mother, Ally was thirty-five years old, bronze-skinned and radiant, with waist-length, blue-black hair that framed a face adorned with just enough makeup to emphasize high, pronounced cheekbones and full, inviting lips. Her expressive, light gray eyes sparkled in the Arizona sunshine. She was sensuous, alluring and sure of her power to please.

Her father, Patrick R. Morgan, had wandered into Sedona early on. A sly investor, Morgan made the decision to forsake a blooming Wall Street career in favor of the more leisurely paced life of the golden southwest. He returned to New York, liquidated his assets and headed back to Sedona with a four-hundred thousand dollar security blanket tucked away in a leather suitcase.

A month later, he began courting Ulsa Alykhotani, a full-blooded Tonto Apache Sedona area native. They were married in a traditional Apache ceremony a year later and blessed with Ally’s birth the year after that.

That fall, with a portion of Patrick’s money and help provided by Ulsa’s brothers, they erected and celebrated the opening of Sedona’s General Mercantile.

Ally had attended college, graduating from Smith College with a major in economics. She’d hung around long enough to catch an interview and secure a position with a financial consulting firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. Then, it was home to Arizona for a three-week visit.             

Sadly, the return flight coupon was pasted inside her diary. 

She’d returned home to find her mom bedridden with a broken hip, having fallen off the store’s loading dock, and a case of double pneumonia. The strain of working the store and caring for her mom had also begun to wear on her dad. Concerned for their well being, she had called her employer and been granted a two-month extension on her starting date. Two months later, her mother’s condition no better and activity at the store picking up, she’d telegrammed her regrets to New England.

Ulsa passed away in November of the following year and her father two years later.

Ally’s inheritance included hefty money market accounts and deeds to the General Mercantile and the Morgan family home. Her net worth was estimated at over two million, a figure she soon doubled. Young, attractive, and wealthy, she soon began to attract a bevy of suitors, none of whom were taken seriously. 

She and Brady met not long after he’d purchased the cabin in Sterling Canyon.

It had taken her months to bed him and they had been partaking on and off ever since; a carefree, purely physical relationship. It seemed an impossible meld, he, a stoic introvert with a secretive past, existing in a self-imposed purgatory, and she, a gregarious extrovert who viewed each new day as a grand and glorious gift from God.

“Brady?” She returned to the counter, a basket filled with canned goods, meats and vegetables. “Some of these items won’t be in until later today.”

“That’s okay, no rush. I can swing by later.”

“I can deliver them personally, provided payback includes dinner.”

“My place, six o’clock?” he said with a grin.

She handed him the groceries, bent over the counter and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Can’t wait.”

He stopped at the door. “Ally? The girl who’s renting one of your jeeps?”

Her brow arched.

“How much do you know about her?”

“Well, she’s young, blond and built for speed, but obviously you’ve already noticed.  She’s a photographer on assignment from National Geographic. Stops in once a week to pick up supplies, but drops in to place a phone call every day at 3:00 . Why do you ask?”

“No special reason. I ran across her last night on my way home.” His face pulled up into the boyish grin Ally believed was reserved only for her. “Lobo gave her a hell of a start, I’ll tell you.”

She gave him a studied look. “Three or four days in the valley and she’s already caught the attention of my two favorite males.” She picked up a rag and dusted off a spotless countertop.

“I have to run.” he said. “Don’t forget, six o’clock sharp. Oh, and Ally?”

“Yes?” 

 “For a moment, your eyes looked more green than gray.”

She gave him a look reserved for the truly demented, then her eyes brightened and she palmed a can of beans and launched it.

He ducked out the door, the can rebounding off the wall behind him, then peered back through the window and waved.

“You’ll pay for that, smart-ass,” she shouted.

She wandered into the back room wondering if old green eyes had reared its head? Jealousy was an emotion with which she was utterly unfamiliar. She and Brady had been lovers for almost as long as he’d lived here but it had always been a purely physical thing, no emotional ties or moonlight promises that faded by dawn. That’s the way they wanted it, right?

She wheeled her jeep along side Brady’s cabin at ten minutes to six.

After a dinner of beef tenderloin, baked salt potatoes smothered in butter and chives and Caesar salad they sat on a blanket in front of the cabin, Ally’s head nestled into Brady’s shoulder and stared into a roaring campfire.

Lobo, his interest piqued, inched his way out of the trees and circled the cabin. He chose a spot just outside the cone of light formed by the fire and sat back on his haunches, bright, yellow eyes studying every movement.

“That was delicious,” Ally said.

“Something special for a special lady.” His ran his fingers through her long, silky hair. “Cognac?”

“Sure, but you don’t have to get me loaded to take advantage of me, you know.”

He shook his head and loped up the cabin steps, returning moments later with two large snifters of golden nectar. Ally was wrapped in her mother’s old Indian blanket.   

“Cold?”

“Not really.” She wore a sensuous smile, leaned back on her elbows and let the blanket unfold. “Did I mention that I was bringing dessert.  Her golden-bronze skin shone seductively in the firelight and his gaze traveled the length of her.

He stripped off his clothes and kneeled down between her legs, his hand priming her warm, wet mound as he mouthed a nipple, his lips kneading it to a tender, fiery tip.       

Her hips rotated in tight circles, her back arched off the ground as soft cries escaped her throat.

He moved on top of her, paused momentarily to run his tongue through the valley between her breasts and then speared her with one swift plunge.

Her body, slick with perspiration, arched up to meet his, her hands climbing over his back and hips. “God, yes,” she whispered.

The need within them was primitive, exciting, and they trembled in each other’s arms. Then, the earth fell away and they traveled to a place of rapture, surrendering to a spiraling climax.   

Later, they sat in silence, staring into the flames, Ally’s blanket fending off the cool air.

“Can you stay the night?” His eyes were fixed on the fire.

“I don’t know. I don’t normally spend the night with strangers.”

His brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, we’ve known each other for quite a while now and yet…” her voice trailed off.

“Yes?”

“In many ways, you’re still a stranger to me. Think about it, how much do I really know about you or your past? About who or what you were before you showed up here? My Mama used to say that to truly know a man you must know his memories.”

He smiled at her but said nothing.

She jabbed his ribs. “So, how much longer before you open up and fill me in on this carefully guarded past of yours?” She paused, then added, “Put away the armor, Brady. You don’t need it when you’re with me.”

His head rotated back toward the fire, his gaze floating off into the distance.

“You really loved her, didn’t you?”

A tear tracked down his cheek and she reached up and wiped it away. “Tell me about her.” She knew there were places inside him, dark places that she might never reach and it made her all the more determined to press on. “Don’t you think it’s time?”  

A moment of silence passed between them. “Her name was Elizabeth,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I was an orphan. Never knew my parents.”

She sat back, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees, and listened, never interrupting as he spent two hours recounting his past, the names of those he had known and the lives that had touched his along the way.

He spoke first of his youth and then of his relationship with Elizabeth and the hopes and dreams they’d shared. “As far as her parents were concerned dating me through high school was fine, but her future lie with someone else. They were convinced that I could never provide for her in the manner to which she’d become accustomed.

She was sent off to school to carry on family tradition and to happen upon a more suitable mate.”

The glow in his eyes suggested a lethal predator and a chill raced through Ally that neither the blanket nor the fire could quell.     

“I ran into a man just before I mustered out of the Army. A man who promised me a job with a solid future and money enough to provide Elizabeth the kind of life her parents had planned for her.” 

He described his training in Okinawa and of his acceptance of a position with ‘The Company’, never referring to COMMEX by name. “Eventually,” he said. “I got so caught up in what I was doing that the years began to slip by unnoticed. I suppose that deep down inside I convinced myself that she would always be there waiting for me. I was still young enough to believe in starting over and naive enough to believe in forever.” He paused and wiped away a tear. “I saw her again, years later, on Hilton Head Island. I can’t explain it, but it was like we’d been reborn, given a second chance to fulfill the dreams, the promises.” 

He spoke of their last days on Hilton Head, of a daughter he’d never known and finally, of the explosion that had claimed Elizabeth’s life avoiding any reference to his affiliation with COMMEX.

“My God,” she whispered when he’d finished, her eyes shiny and wet. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I never would have…”

“No, please.” He put a finger to her lips, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’ve told you this because I wanted to, needed to, not because you asked me to.”

They sat quietly then, resting comfortably in each other’s arms, sipping Cognac and staring into the fire.

Ally broke the silence. “Tell me more about this company you went to work for, the one that kept you from getting in touch with Elizabeth after she’d left for school?”

“It was a government agency.”

She pulled away and grinned. “Government, huh? Let me guess, FBI? CIA?”

“What? Do I look like a spy or something?”

“Don’t know, never met a spook before. Still, why do I get the feeling there’s more to this story than you’re letting on.”

“Not now, please?” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

“Come on.” She poked his side, prying, yet striving to keep it light. “Don’t stop now.”

“I can’t. It’s still too soon, Ally. Besides, I’ve already told you things I’ve told no one else. Ever.” He turned and pressed his lips against her forehead.

She’d pushed as far as she could, had put at least a chink in the armor. If she pushed much further, he was liable to disappear into that hole in the past from which he had come. She would eventually learn all there was to know, but it was going to take a long time.

“Tell you what,” she nuzzled against his chest.  “You start a fire inside and turn down the bed. Tomorrow morning I’ll cook you a first-class breakfast.”

Jake Slaughter has had enough and is heading back to the South Carolina Lowcountry after twenty years of globetrotting. There, he will confront a lost love, personal demons and a captivating young woman with secrets of her own. A cast of local characters and family members all play a part in his struggle to reclaim his life, to begin anew and to finally love again without the pain and misery of his past. This is a powerful journey across physical and personal landscapes; a story about breaking with the past and a love story about people stifled by grief and regret who struggle to begin anew.