Dark Country

by Adam Plantinga

Genres: Suspense; Thrillers

Synopsis

USA Today bestselling and Edgar Award nominee for best novel author, Adam Plantinga returns with the next thriller story in Kurt Argento’s journey as he finds himself protecting a boy from someone hunting him down.

After the events in Fenton, Arizona, ex-Detroit cop Kurt Argento is working under an alias as a handyman tending to the grounds for a church in Brandt, South Dakota. It’s a peaceful existence but Argento is haunted by the dark path he found himself on, not knowing if there’s a way to rationalize what he endured in the desert. But what he does know is that he is keeping a low profile and moving forward.

Until he meets 17-year-old, Majed, as he’s pursued by two men. Argento can’t help but intervene, not buying their claimed mistake thinking Majed took one of their wallets.

Never being able to leave an innocent in the path of danger, Argento unearths that the men were hired by a billionaire who’s willing to pay for the life they want—and Majed is the key to it. And what ensues is a cat and mouse game as Argento gets caught in the bloodshed and corruption, with Majed at the very center.

Release date: October 27, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

The church was luminous inside with crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and stained glass windows in reds and greens depicting renderings of Jesus and his disciples. Christ walking on water. The feeding of the five thousand. The Last Supper.

Kurt Argento sat in the back left corner. If a threat entered, odds are they’d be right-handed and would focus on that direction; his position on the deep left would put him in their blind spot, giving him more time to react. He could not turn off his tactical brain, even here. A family was ushered to the row directly in front of him, a young mother and two boys with matching bowl cuts. Argento had a crescent-shaped scar on both cheeks and a nose just off-center, and one of the boys stared at his face until his mother redirected his gaze with a firm hand.

The congregation was graying but there were enough youngsters present that the pastor would deliver a children’s message when the liturgy called for it. Half those assembled dressed casually, with a few people wearing what they might put on to play Frisbee golf. The other half was in suits and dresses. The kids in front of him fussed in their seats until their mother opened her purse and gave them peppermints. At the opening strains to a hymn, the church choir filed down the side rows in white and magenta robes with crosses at the collar. They turned smartly at the back of the church, where their rows met, and they sang as they moved up the center aisle in procession and took their places behind the pulpit.

The pastor was the Reverend Scott McCoyer, a man in his early thirties who had a full beard, which, if you didn’t know him, you might think he was too slight for. His sermon was called “Ownership.” He preached on personal responsibility and how people say, “Mistakes were made,” when they should say, “I made a mistake.” He tied it to a verse in Galatians 6:5 about each one bearing his own load.

After the benediction, the congregation was instructed to go in God’s peace and the organ rumbled solemnly to signify the end of the service. There’d be cookies and lemonade served outside, but Argento rarely felt like socializing. He walked out of the church into the sunlight, passing a trio of kids skipping on the freshly cut grass.

It had been nearly a year since Kurt Argento left Fenton, Arizona. During his time there, he’d stumbled onto a clandestine government project that cost the lives of three civilians. He’d been left for dead in the desert, and his dog, Hudson, was shot down in the street. He had retaliated, fighting fire with fire and then some, so when he’d departed Fenton, he did so as a man wanted by both the Sinaloa Cartel and local and federal authorities for crimes ranging from assault on a police officer to multiple counts of homicide for killing the men who tried to kill him. Most days he could see his actions as ugly but justified. But the nights were different. At night, he would run Hudson’s collar through his hands and have too much time to think. But no matter how he framed it, his decisions had sealed off his former life and stranded him in this new one, a place he was still trying to understand.

Since Fenton, he’d stayed in Chicago for a few months. Kansas City. Memphis. Multiple quick stops in towns whose names he’d already forgotten. When he thought the law was close, he’d slept a few evenings under bridges. Spent one night in a graveyard. Now he was here, in the small municipality of Barton, South Dakota, just outside of Sioux Falls. The Sinaloa Cartel hadn’t yet established a presence in Barton, and no one vacationed here, so he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew.

He was looking to stay for a while.

Maybe this one would be lucky town.

Kurt Argento did not go to church because he thought it would assuage his conscience. He went to listen and learn. To diminish the hot spike of anger at his center that had become his default setting. In Fenton, Arizona, a kind of madness had come over him. He’d become unmoored, lost in violence. Now he had to find his way back. At the end of the service, Reverend McCoyer told the congregation to go in God’s peace. Be nice to have that.

Be nice to have any peace at all.

Argento went down to the utility room in the basement to change out of his church clothes. The room was his, for now. The reverend had given it to him in exchange for being the church handyman and keeping a watch out for trespassers and vandals. It was an off-the-books arrangement, which was fine by Argento. After Arizona, he couldn’t use his real name. As far as the reverend and the members of Calvary Lutheran Church knew, he was Joe Brookens, the last name borrowed from Tom Brookens, the Detroit Tigers’ third baseman in the eighties. Argento had been a police officer in Detroit for twenty-one years. Now he was a part-time handyman living on an air mattress in a church basement under an assumed name. He could handle that. He didn’t need much more than a bed and a blanket and some honest work. But the business about being on the run from the same type of people he used to work for brought out a sadness in him that hung right on the edge of despair.

When he went back outside, the congregation had cleared out and gone home. He let McCoyer’s dog, Martin, out of the backyard, and put a leash on him. Martin was a mixed breed hound, no more than fifty pounds, with small dark eyes and black-and-white fur. Walking Martin wasn’t part of his duties, but Argento had volunteered. He remembered the little skip of excitement Hudson would make when he heard the jangle of the leash and realized he was about to be taken on a stroll. Argento’s life was smaller without Hudson. McCoyer had preached in a recent sermon that everybody deserves a chance at redemption. Argento respectfully disagreed. Most. But not everyone. Not the man in Fenton, an ex-soldier named Krebs who’d shot Hudson. Krebs deserved the ninety-pound kettle bell Argento had brought down on his head again and again. It was one of the lives Argento had taken there that did not burden him.

After the walk, Argento adjusted the blades on the lawn mower in the storage shed. He liked being around metal. The clean look and sturdy feel of it. He’d always imagined he would have been at home as one of the city steelworkers you saw in old black-and-white photos on a girder hundreds of feet above the ground eating lunch out of a tin box. He fired up the mower. He didn’t like making more noise than he had to on the Sabbath, but the grass needed a trim, and with McCoyer’s lengthy to-do list, he hadn’t had a chance to get to it yesterday.

Argento had been cutting the grass for only a few minutes when he killed the mower, because a boy of about sixteen was running toward him on the church lawn, being pursued by two men who looked like bad business.

The kid wasn’t quite sprinting. He was running smooth and hard, as he steadily pulled away from his pursuers.

As the kid reached him, Argento put his hand up.

“What’s all this?”

The boy stopped a few feet behind Argento, using him as a barrier between himself and the two men, who also came to an abrupt stop. The boy’s pursuers exchanged a brief glance with each other. The first man was around thirty, rugged and athletic-looking with sandy-blond hair and a dark suit, all of which combined to give him the look of an agent who did dignitary protection. The second was also in a dark suit, maybe five years older, shorter and heavier with bushy eyebrows and facial stubble. Even in the formal wear, he looked like a longshoreman. Both of their chests were heaving, and they were breathing hard, much harder than the boy, who appeared to have already recovered from his burst across the grass.

“Kid took his wallet,” Longshoreman said, jerking a thumb toward the first man.

Stolen Wallet was silent for a moment before he said, “Hey, it’s not him.” His voice had a rasp to it like he was getting over a cold. “Thought it was, but now that I got a better look… yeah, sorry for the mix-up.” He extended his hand toward the kid, who hesitated for a minute before taking it. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Okay,” the kid said. “No problem.” His English bore a moderate accent, but Argento couldn’t place the origin.

Argento didn’t say anything. Things were sorting themselves out well enough on their own. He didn’t need to hear himself talk. But he stayed watchful. Kept his hands above his waist. Feet shoulder-width apart. The job had taught him that. Right when you started to relax was when shit often decided to implode.

Longshoreman eyed Argento. “You all good, Lawn Guy?” Argento didn’t care for being called Lawn Guy. But he just nodded. Both men turned and walked in the direction of the church parking lot. They got in a nondescript gray Buick and drove off. Argento couldn’t see the plate. He turned toward the kid and realized he recognized him. He and his mother went to Calvary Lutheran, not every Sunday, but from time to time. His mother was a thin, matronly woman who always looked tired. Argento had never seen the father.

“You okay?”

The kid nodded. He looked Middle Eastern with buzzed hair and a lean runner’s build. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that bore the name of an international soccer team Argento didn’t recognize.

“You take anyone’s wallet?”

“No sir.”

“Why’d they think you did?”

“I don’t know.”

“How far they chase you?”

“About a mile.”

“How’d you get away?”

“I run the mile at school,” the kid said. “Plus I went some places where they couldn’t take the car.”

Normally Argento wouldn’t have asked any follow-up questions. Especially now, he needed to mind his own business. Besides, it was a simple misunderstanding, the second man had said. They happened. The men had become conciliatory, which was a word he’d learned from his late wife, Emily. But the scene still didn’t read right. Some things had struck him about the interaction between the two men and the boy. One was the way the men had looked at each other before they mentioned the wallet. Like they needed to come up with a cover story for the chase. The other was something Argento noticed about Longshoreman. When he turned to go, Argento had seen a break under his coat just above the beltline.

The telltale sign of a handgun in a hip holster.

We missed him,” Ricks said.

“He’s a kid. How did you miss him?”

“Fucker’s quick,” Galani said. “Runs track or some shit.”

Harold Visser looked at the two men with barely disguised consternation. Ricks, tall and wide-shouldered with what he no doubt considered his All-American good looks, his voice sounding like he’d smoked too many cigarettes. Galani, squat and thick with caterpillar eyebrows and manicured stubble. Both had failed to detain a skinny teenager who had no weapons or training. Was this really the best help Visser could muster? They talked a good game. When he’d first met with Ricks and his partner, trying to gauge their experience level, Ricks had alluded to contract work, how he’d dropped his ID and insignia and gone in “sterile” on a hunt-and-destroy mission through some African village. Galani had been quiet, looking like a combination of tough and bored.

The men insisted on meeting in person again today, which Visser was loath to do. But he didn’t have many other options. Should he have done more research? Checked credentials? He had the dawning realization he hadn’t asked half as many questions as he should have. But what else could he do? The pool of criminals for hire that would do this kind of job wasn’t overly broad in the greater South Dakota–Iowa region. And the men at least looked the part.

Visser himself was of medium height and build, his red hair clearly thinning no matter how he styled it. He’d gone to a mid-tier university followed by a decidedly below-tier law school called Florida Coastal School of Law, which had recently lost its accreditation and folded. He was still paying off both schools. He drove a ten-year-old Acura and had a moderately attractive wife, who’d stopped paying attention to him years ago. Their two children, a boy and a girl, both high schoolers, spent most of their time in their rooms, and frequently asked him for money despite rarely doing their allotted chores. His son’s ideal relationship with him would be if he simply slid the needed funds under his door every morning. His daughter was somewhat warmer to him. They occasionally did things together, like getting boba tea, that sugary drink all the kids were crazy about. But someone doing a close examination of his life would conclude it was entirely unremarkable, a contention Visser himself could not argue with.

But he was on the cusp of changing all of that. He just had to see this job through.

The three men were meeting in the back of an abandoned Dairy Queen in Meade, Iowa, in a lot overgrown with weeds, hidden from the street. Visser used to go to this Dairy Queen as a boy with his friends. Got dinner after ball games, inhaling the savory aroma of cheeseburgers and chocolate malts. They would sit at a table near the girls and pretend not to pay attention to them while covertly watching them apply lip balm and talk too loudly. He’d lived here most of his life. Whenever he’d tried to leave for good, the plans had fizzled. Like Meade had a magnetic pull on him.

“So try again,” Visser said. “Jesus.”

Ricks held his hands palms up. “Kid knows what we look like now. It’s gonna be harder.”

“Try again,” Visser said. “Or you don’t get paid.”

Galani grunted. “We should get paid for the first attempt. Not our fault the kid’s a track star and found shelter behind some groundskeeper.”

“Groundskeeper?”

“Just a broke-down dude cutting grass for the church. He ain’t nothing.”

“You’ll get payment in full when the job is complete. That was the deal.”

“Fuck that,” Galani said, and gave him a hard look.

Visser felt a wave of apprehension at Galani’s hostility. This was not something he was used to, dealing with men like these. He had grown up largely conflict-avoidant. But he couldn’t falter in front of them. If they sensed weakness, they would exploit it. “You don’t like it,” he said with more bravado than he felt, “feel free to complain to the police.”

Galani didn’t reply. He smelled like cigarettes and one of his eyebrows stuck straight out a good inch from his brow, like a flagpole.

“We’ll be in touch,” Ricks said, and both men left his car and got in their own.

When he was alone, Visser waited a moment. Calculating what he was going to say to the old man. Then he drove out of the weed-strewn lot and headed toward the ranch.

The estate was on the outskirts of Meade, Iowa, some sixty miles from Barton, South Dakota. Visser checked in at the gate booth with the house manager, Aaron James, who handled the first few hours of the morning shift. Manager was the word the old man preferred for James, who he considered family, although Visser considered the man a glorified custodian. James had been with the old man for decades and did not like Visser. Visser knew this only because James had once said so, years ago, after James had drunk too much at a ranch event and told Visser he was a parasite. That the old man deserved better. James had never brought it up again. Had never apologized. The two men spoke only when necessary and then said as little as possible.

James wore his usual white dress shirt and orange tie. The orange tie was because he’d gone to Clemson, Visser had heard, although he’d never cared enough to ask James himself. He was a short, compact man of about fifty who reminded Visser of a jockey, although he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a Black one. Other than his lone alcohol-fueled dress-down at the party, he was polite, almost infuriatingly so. Visser would love to get a rise out of him one of these days. Relish seeing that calm exterior crack.

“Mr. James.”

“Mr. Visser.”

And Visser asked the question he always asked. “How is he?”

“About the same. He’s trying to get some rest.”

James raised the gate and Visser drove the long path to the main house past the fences that contained the few head of cattle the old man kept around even though the property had long since ceased being a working ranch. Visser did not care for cows. For any animals, really. His daughter had pled with him to get a cat, and he’d appeased her by letting her get on Snapchat a year before it was prudent, just to get her to stop asking.

He parked in the front drive by the brick well, once the main source of water for the house but long since dried up and covered with a wooden cap. The dormant well was emblematic, Visser thought, of his employer’s desire to have his house and its grounds bear testament to the passage of time. To the way things used to be. This nostalgia was enhanced no doubt by the well serving as the finish line for the sprints the old man’s youngest son used to run on the side lawn. The boy was plenty fast, and the old man would watch these proceedings with obvious pride. He and his boys. My Three Sons. Wasn’t that the name of a TV show once? Visser guessed the fictional siblings fared better than the old man’s three offspring, none of whom were exactly flourishing.

Visser let himself into the house with his key. The old man was in his favorite chair in the study in the great house that he had helped build, something he’d told Visser so many times that Visser knew the story by heart. It was constructed of masonry slabs and slate, limestone and old-growth timber, not the faux rock and prefab panels currently in fashion. The old man shifted in his chair. If he needed assistance, he had a button he could press, and an attendant would appear. He was the second richest man in Iowa. One of the four hundred wealthiest people in the country. His business ventures were centered in the heartland, but a few of his interests were global, expanding to the Baltics, Scandinavia, emerging markets in the Middle East. His name was Silas Greer.

“Sir?”

Greer’s chair had wheels, but he did not turn around. It was an involved piece of furniture with levers and layers. Visser had been there when the chair was delivered. The delivery had come complete with a nicely dressed man from the furniture company who explained the chair’s features and how it blended in with the rest of the decor.

“They missed him,” Visser said. He hastily followed up with, “It was a fluke. They’ll try again soon.”

The old man let out a powerful sneeze. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and said nothing. Just stared at Visser with tired eyes.

Visser waited. Looked at the walls, which bore black-and-white family photos, a steer head, and a huge American flag in a glass case. A three-tiered bookshelf anchored the back of the room. There were first editions on the shelves, Visser knew. Hemingway, Melville, and Steinbeck. Despite his vast fortune, Greer did not overly indulge in the trappings of the uber-rich. No helicopters, summer homes, prize horses. Other than his sprawling estate and his ergonomic chair, books were one of the few things Greer had been happy to spend money on over the two decades Visser worked with him.

When Greer spoke, it was quiet enough that Visser had to lean in to hear him. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

“The kid doesn’t know they were trying to take him. They made up a cover story. The job is still a go.”

“Did you hire the right people?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Are you the right person?”

Visser’s face went hot that after twenty years of service, his employer would ask a question like that. It fed into his ongoing insecurity that the old man was constantly reassessing whether to keep him around. Problem was, Visser wasn’t sure if he was the right person. In fact, for this particular operation, he had grave doubts. But he opted for “You know I am, sir.” As if by simply declaring it, it would be so.

Greer said something else, but Visser didn’t catch it. He moved in closer, nearly touching his ear to the old man’s lips. “Get it right,” Greer rasped. He looked like he was in a trance.

Visser nodded and looked away from Greer back at the walls. The grand chimney. Pictures of Greer with two different US presidents. A medal from the war. Several honorary degrees. Certificates of appreciation for his charitable giving. They were all hung up just for him. He did not allow anyone but employees or family into the great room. He never sought to impress. If Visser ever won a medal in a war, he’d wear it around his neck and head straight to the bar to pick up the brunette with the biggest rack.

When he looked back at Greer, he was still seated, one veined hand gripping the other as if trying to steady himself. Looking out at nothing. An old man in a home built to last.

“Thank you, sir,” Visser said haltingly. And let himself out.

Argento had breakfast with Reverend McCoyer in the kitchen of the parsonage. Bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. Perhaps the greatest joining of smells known to humankind. Argento could put eggs away. He figured one day he’d take a run at Newman’s record from Cool Hand Luke.

Argento didn’t want to lie to the reverend when he’d first come to Calvary Lutheran. It wouldn’t have sat right. So he didn’t say his name was Joe Brookens. He simply said that was the name he used. The distinction made a difference to him. McCoyer had asked him why and Argento said there were people looking for him and he didn’t want to be found. McCoyer had been uncertain of this at first, as he should have been. But he later told Argento he’d checked his face against the local police department’s wanted flyers and registered sex offenders in the area and found no match.

“Jesus walked with all types,” McCoyer said. “He’ll take you as you are. But I’d feel better knowing your real name. I hope we can get to the point where you’ll trust me with it.”

“It’s better for you if you don’t know.”

“Whatever your past, you look like you’ve… seen some action.”

Argento nodded. “Was in a kayak that tipped over once.”

McCoyer eyed Argento’s scarred face. “Looks like maybe it was a couple of kayaks. But I’ve had enough conversations with you and seen you interact with my congregants to where I believe you’re here for the right reasons. If that ever changes, you’ll have to leave.”

“I’m good with that.”

“And I probably won’t plug you in as a deacon just yet.”

“Deacon’s extra. Double the salary.”

McCoyer smiled because while he was providing Argento with a place to stay, he wasn’t paying him anything. He’d been upfront about it from the beginning. It wasn’t in the budget. Argento had seen the clothes McCoyer wore and the car he drove. A wardrobe straight from a thrift store bin and a creaky Mitsubishi Eclipse GT with enough cracks and craters that it looked like it had barrel-rolled into a ditch. Argento guessed the minister wasn’t drawing much more of a salary than Argento was.

“I don’t pretend to know you well,” McCoyer said. “But I do enough pastoral care to tell you’re in pain. It will get easier.”

Argento met his gaze and McCoyer must have seen the doubt in his eyes.

“Getting easier doesn’t mean it will ever be easy.”

Argento forked some more eggs on his plate.

McCoyer eyed Argento’s breakfast. “How many is that? Seven?”

“I like eggs.”

McCoyer stood and poured himself and Argento more coffee.

Argento said, “After the service yesterday, I saw two men chase a kid onto the front lawn. They claimed he took their wallet but then said they had the wrong guy. Kid was a teenager, looked Arabic. I’ve seen him in church before.”

“Majed Bakir,” McCoyer said without hesitation. “He and his mother, Nadia, have political asylum here. They fled from Syria. They’ve been coming to church for a few years now.”

“His English is good. Better than mine.”

“Nadia told me Syrians learn it as their secondary language starting in the first grade.”

“They’re going to a Lutheran church? Figured most Syrians would be Muslims.”

McCoyer sipped his coffee. “It’s predominately a Muslim nation but around ten percent are Christian. But they’re not Lutheran. I just think they like being in church. Kid’s smart. He’s asked me some theological questions that are advanced for his age. Do you think he took the wallet?”

“No. But one of the guys chasing him had a gun in a holster.”

“South Dakota is a concealed carry state. I don’t think you even need a permit.”

Argento nodded. “Could be nothing. Just wanted to make sure the kid was okay.”

“We like our guns in these parts. You know our state bird is the ring-necked pheasant? And every year there are corporate events where hunters get together for the release of a bunch of cage-raised pheasants and they go shooting. That makes us the only state I’m aware of that regularly and proudly kills our own state bird.”

McCoyer got up to wash the dishes. Argento would have offered to help, but he was still finishing up breakfast and an uneaten egg was a sad thing. Argento watched the pastor work. He figured there were a couple more reasons why McCoyer kept him on without knowing his real name. For one, Argento thought that McCoyer was lonely. He was recently divorced. Argento overheard a congregant speculate that his wife had left him after becoming weary of his austere lifestyle. This was a man who was eating a lot of meals by himself. Plus Argento didn’t have a home so, in a Biblical act, McCoyer gave him one, even if he did have a shrouded past. And to round it out, McCoyer needed the help around the church grounds. The man wasn’t mechanically inclined. When Argento had first come to the church and a fuse blew, he’d asked McCoyer where the circuit breakers were and the pastor admitted he had no idea. Argento gravitated to building maintenance. In Detroit, they had a year-long repair request in on a periodic ceiling leak that dripped gray toilet water on a desk in the SWAT office. One morning it splashed on Argento’s neck, and he said to hell with it, drove straight home, got his tools, and fixed it himself before the end of his shift.

McCoyer was still cleaning the dishes when he said, “What is it you want from being here?”

The reverend had preached not long ago about how the harm that we do doesn’t negate the good and the good does not excuse the harm. Argento liked being around people who said wise things. But he also needed to be in church. It was a place where he could remember the men he killed in Arizona, feel the . . .