Imminent Threat

Book 2: Scott and Mara Roberts

by Jeff Gunhus

Genres: Military Thrillers; Political Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

A family of spies. A network of killers. A treacherous, planned attack on the world’s most powerful leaders—and the final countdown to Armageddon . . .
 
Jacobslav Scarvan is supposed to be dead. Once a ruthless assassin for the KGB, he went too far when he burned a family alive for the sheer pleasure of it—and became a target himself. Both the CIA and Russian intelligence wanted him eliminated. CIA agent Scott Roberts was the man to do it. Three bullets should have been enough to kill Scarvan. But it only forced the rogue agent deeper underground—to places that will forever haunt him . . .
 
Twenty years later Scott and his daughter Mara are working for the US president, using their joint experience to form an elite Alpha Team of highly skilled operatives. Their mission is to hunt down and destroy the apocalyptic shadow organization known as Omega. But when they learn that Scarvan is still alive—plotting revenge after undergoing a twisted radicalization that makes him more dangerous than ever—Scott and Mara must race across the globe to prevent an epic disaster. This time, when the clock runs out, the end times begin . . .
 
“With an alpha female heroine and a tantalizing premise, this hard-edged, gripping thriller matches wits and wiles, delivering an entertaining romp.”

—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author on Silent Threat
 
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com
 

Release date: December 29, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

Jacobslav Scarvan realized too late that his countrymen meant to kill him. The surprise wasn’t that the entire voyage out to the middle of the Aegean Sea on a godforsaken fishing trawler had been an elaborate trap, but that his comrades had possessed the imagination to pull it off.

Which meant they’d had help.

And if they had, it meant the list of men he would need to kill after this was done was going to be long indeed.

The trawler heeled to the side as it dipped into the trough of a wave. Water broke over the bow as it plowed through, hurtling a sheet of cold seawater across the deck. The three men in front of him staggered from the force of it.

Scarvan didn’t move.

“Jacob, this is ridiculous. Let’s go inside and talk.” Viktor Belchik looked pathetic, clutching his sopping wet coat at the collar, squinting as the wind from the storm whipsawed around them. His thin hair, usually dutifully combed over to cover his spotted scalp, was pasted over his ear and cheek. Scarvan had once thought of this man as mentor and father. Part of his heart broke that his own personal Judas would be the one person in the world he trusted most.

“Let’s do it here,” Scarvan said, spreading his feet wider, a strong base to compensate for the violent rocking of the deck.

He turned his body into a side profile to offer less of a target. At six foot three inches, this was no mean feat. He was broad-shouldered, still muscular from his grueling daily workouts even at the age of fifty-two. His gray hair was cut short so it didn’t obscure his vision as the rain and wind buffeted him. He knew his dark Serbian features—heavy brow, thick lips, brooding eyes—would work to his advantage as he scowled at the men facing him. Anyone from the world of espionage knew to fear him. The two particular men standing in front of him had worked with him before. They knew enough to be terrified.

The men took a position on either side of Belchik and reached for their firearms holstered at their sides. They didn’t pull them out.

Scarvan knew these men, Demetri Acha and Sergei Kolonov. They were good operatives, fast and accurate, lethal killers. They should be. Scarvan had trained them himself.

“You’re paranoid!” Belchik shouted. “Just as I taught you to be. But this is madness. Why would I want to terminate my most powerful asset? What sense does it make?”

Scarvan felt nearly embarrassed for his old mentor. They both knew how the game ended for men like him. He possessed too many state secrets, knew where too many of the bodies were buried, both figuratively and literally. Eventually, Mother Russia would want her house put in order. Men like him either timed it right and disappeared one day to live out their lives in some remote village or island, or they were terminated.

Looked like his timing had been off.

And, in retrospect, as he stood on the bucking deck in the middle of a storm, he had a good idea why.

“It’s because of the Americans, isn’t it?” Scarvan asked.

Belchik’s eyes betrayed him. His demeanor changed, a man who’d made a decision.

“Yes,” he said.

Scarvan gave a slight nod, acknowledging the honesty. A bolt of lightning cut across the sky, followed immediately by a crash of thunder that shook the boat. Scarvan took notice of the reactions from both Acha and Kolonov. Any advantage he could spot was going to count in the next few seconds. Unfortunately, neither man flinched at the thunder.

“Who gave the order?” he asked.

“What does it matter?” Belchik said.

“To me, it matters.”

Belchik lost his balance as another wave hit and he staggered backward. Once he regained his footing, he was next to a metal support column for the balcony on the second-floor deck. He slid his body over so that his vitals were protected. The movement had been orchestrated and perfectly executed. Scarvan had to admit it was a nice move by the old man.

“Was this your decision?” Scarvan asked.

“I follow orders,” Belchik said. “We all follow orders.”

“Look around,” Scarvan replied, gesturing to his surroundings. “You can see where that gets you.”

He’d spent a lifetime following orders. Who to kill. Who to maim. Who to take apart piece by piece until they spilled their secrets. He’d killed for his country for three decades. And now she wanted to kill him.

“This comes from the highest levels,” Belchik said. “After the operation in America, reprisals were demanded.”

Scarvan nodded. He’d been the sacrificial lamb offered for the slaughter. Again, the only surprise he felt was that he hadn’t seen it coming. He’d resisted the idea that at age fifty-two he’d lost his edge. But tonight was proof that he’d not only done that, but he’d somehow turned dull, inured by overconfidence and ego that had made him think he was beyond this kind of treatment.

Killing the two American agents on their home territory hadn’t been the mistake. That part was fair play in the dangerous game in which they all played. It was making the two men watch as he tortured their wives and children alive that had been a step too far. There had been poetry in the act, a Biblical sense of eye-foran-eye given the operation the two agents had executed in Bulgaria. A bomb where innocent women and children had been killed. Why were these men’s families any more important than those killed in the collateral damage from their bomb? But he should have understood that the act would be taken as too personal, too outside the convoluted rules they all followed.

“The children. It was too much, Jacob. There was nothing I could do,” Belchik said. “You were not authorized to do such a thing.”

Scarvan took note of the denial. It was bullshit, they both knew it. He never had limits put on him and his handlers had always encouraged his ruthlessness. Demanded it. Belchik was speaking to someone else.

Scarvan raised his eyes to the balcony one story above the back deck where they stood. The lights didn’t penetrate to a spot in the center. He didn’t think it was an accident.

“I’m sorry, Jacob. It’s over,” Belchik said.

The old man looked to Acha and Kolonov as if it were their cue to complete the task. But they didn’t move. Scarvan didn’t mistake their hesitation for compassion or internal conflict about killing their teacher.

No, they hesitated because they knew his capability. If they both pulled their weapons, they would be able to kill him. But at least one of them would die in the process and the other would likely be wounded. Whoever drew first would be the one Scarvan would kill.

Neither wanted to go first.

That was a fatal mistake.

Scarvan timed his move with the next big wave that slammed into the ship. As it crashed over the bow, he ducked down and rolled to his right, his Sig Sauer out of its holster and in his hand as the wall of water hit them.

Acha and Kolonov jumped toward cover, guns out.

Scarvan took aim but waited. The ship’s nose dipped into the next trough, sending his targets downward. In the split second before the trawler climbed back up the next wave face, the deck was flat and stable.

He squeezed the trigger and Acha’s head jerked back, the spray of blood visible even in the storm. He turned to look for Kolonov.

Then the unexpected happened.

Searing pain shot up his arm as his gun flew from his hand. He clasped his wrist. It felt like it was on fire. He had been shot enough times to know the feeling. But where had the shot come from?

He reached for his backup weapon strapped to his ankle. The Glock 22 was not as effective as his Sig Sauer. Before he could grasp it, another bullet tore into his calf, shattering bone and flesh.

He cried out. He could take the white-hot pain, he’d endured far worse, but he knew he was now in real trouble. The problem was the precision of the shooter. Whoever it was had placed two perfect shots in a row on a moving deck in the middle of a storm. That wasn’t good.

Scarvan grunted as he pushed back the flap of skin that used to be his calf, digging for his gun. Triumph surged through him as he felt it on the deck next to him. He wrapped the fingers from his good hand around it and lifted it toward the balcony.

The shooter had to be there. It’s where he would be if—

Scarvan’s shoulder exploded. This time he saw the muzzle flash come from the balcony. The riot of pain a small consolation for being right.

He dropped his weapon and it skittered across the deck.

Unarmed and shot three times, Scarvan fell to his knees in the center of the deck.

He saw Kolonov train his weapon on him, but then a new voice called out.

“No, wait.”

Scarvan raised his head to see a man step out from the shadows of the trawler’s cabin. He was similar in age to him, wearing a black trench coat and a hat pulled low. Still, he knew immediately who it was. James Hawthorn. CIA.

Scarvan glanced up to the balcony. He saw the shooter now, covering him as Hawthorn approached. If Hawthorn was here, in person, he knew the identity of the shooter.

Scott Roberts.

It had to be. He was the best Hawthorn had and it explained the precision of the shots so far. One move and he’d get a bullet in the head, he had no doubt.

Hawthorn stopped short of him, far enough to be safe. Close enough to gloat over his pain.

“The agents you killed, they were my friends,” Hawthorn said. “But we all understand the risks of our profession. But you tortured their families. Burned them alive one by one. You brought great dishonor on your country.”

Scarvan spat on the deck between them. “I’m going to kill you,” he said. Then he cried out, “I’m going to kill all of you, I swear it!”

Hawthorn sneered. “You’ll have to come back from the dead to do it.” Without taking his eyes off Scarvan, he said, “Kill this miserable piece of trash.”

The trawler hammered into a wave. The ship shuddered like it’d glanced off a solid wall. It was the chance Scarvan had been waiting for. He jumped to his feet and ran. A shot fired and he heard the round zip past his right ear. He didn’t think he would be as lucky with the next bullet.

He reached the port side of the trawler and dove headfirst over the railing. As he fell, another shot slammed into his leg.

Then he hit the cold water.

His body reacted with a sharp inhalation. He sucked down seawater and then coughed it back up. A wave crashed on him and he was underwater, struggling to swim with his damaged leg and blown-out shoulder.

He fought back to the surface. When he came up, he saw searchlights from the trawler stretching like fingers across the water. But he was already far away from the ship. There was no way they were going to find him.

But it felt like an empty victory. As another wave pushed him back underwater, he felt like he’d accomplished nothing more than to choose the manner of his own death.

If it was meant to be that way, then so be it.

But if he did survive somehow, if he made it through, he was going to enjoy punishing each one of the people on that boat.

Like Hawthorn said, even if he had to come back from the dead to do it.

Father Spiros climbed daily down from his home high over the water, navigating the rope ladder to the rocky landing twenty feet below. It was his daily habit of several decades to walk the stretch of stone shoreline beneath his skete, the ancient hermit dwelling built into the cliff rising from the Aegean.

Sometimes the sea delivered useful items to him. A length of fishing net. A fish stranded on the rocks that became his supper. A piece of castaway clothing.

He’d been a fit, athletic man, a soldier in the Greek army during the war against the Nazis. At seventy years old, he was a gheronda, a respected elder among the monastic community. He was fit for his age, wiry and lean, stronger than his long gray beard and wrinkled face indicated. His daily walks on the uneven ground kept him healthy. He enjoyed it most after a storm, interested to find whatever the sea had delivered from the depths after it had raged.

On his regular path he’d found a length of good rope, two bottles of a beautiful blue color in which he would put flowers. It was much farther up the shore than he normally walked when Father Spiros found the body.

At first, he didn’t think the shape on the rocky shore was a man. Certainly, it was something out of place. A pile of dark brown seaweed perhaps. Or some trash from one of the tankers that passed by the shores. But as he came closer, he made out the outline and knew what it was.

The body was on its side and had its feet pointed toward land with its head near the water. The man had not crawled out, but rather had been washed ashore. Clear evidence he was likely dead.

And it was a man. Even sprawled on the rocks in wet clothes, one arm bent back at an impossible angle, clearly broken or separated at the shoulder, the figure’s muscular bulk was apparent.

Spiros walked to the other side of the body to look at the face.

The man appeared Slavic, with a heavy brow and high forehead. Thick hair pasted to his scalp. His mouth hung open, revealing teeth covered in blood. The man’s eyes were closed, which gave Spiros pause. He’d seen more than his share of death and he’d expected to see the man staring blankly into the sky.

Unless . . .

Carefully, he kneeled beside the man and placed his hand near his mouth. He thought he felt the barest hint of warm breath but couldn’t be sure.

He reached to the man’s neck and pressed his fingers there, digging for a pulse.

As he did, the old man’s other hand pulled back the man’s shirt. It was soaked red with blood. He looked quickly back up to the man’s face.

The eyes were open.

Spiros cried out as the man snapped at him with his teeth. Gnashing at him like a wild animal.

The man’s feet kicked. He groaned and vomited a foul-smelling mix of blood, bile and seawater. Then his entire body spasmed, shaking violently. Spiros placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and gripped it tight.

“Isychia. Isychia,” he said. Quiet, quiet.

The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, closed, and he went still.

Spiros reached again for the man’s neck, ready this time in case the man tried to bite him again.

There was a pulse. Thin and ragged, but a pulse.

Spiros made the man as comfortable as possible and then set out to fetch some of the younger brothers to help him carry the man back to his skete.

As he clambered over the rocks, hurrying as fast as he dared, he marveled at the ways God revealed Himself. For years, Father Spiros had prayed for God to send him an instrument, a divine weapon to help him realize the vision his Lord had sent to him throughout his life. A world that was to be reborn, baptized by fire. Destroyed so that it might be renewed.

Certainly, this man on the beach could be the fulfillment of prayer.

Or a challenge to his faith.

He could not have known on that day that the Lord would take twenty years to answer that question. And, true to the nature of his God, the answer would be both.

Twenty years later

Scott Roberts felt no sympathy for the sniveling terrorist on the floor in front of him. Sure, the man was someone’s son, maybe someone’s brother, maybe even some poor woman’s husband. It didn’t matter. Whatever rocks life had thrown at Hassan Abbas, there was no excuse for what he’d done. Ultimately it was his own decision that had led him to leave behind a duffel bag of explosives in a Christmas market in Munich, Germany.

Just like it was Scott’s decision to take a detour from his mission in Prague to lend a hand in finding the scumbag.

Hawthorn had denied his request to divert but Scott had ignored him. Six months of hunting Omega had yielded nothing but dead ends and dead informants. Both Scott and his team were restless, ready for a win, ready for anything that didn’t feel like pissing into the wind.

The counterterrorism unit of the German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, was already working the case. Nineteen dead, seven of them just school kids not much older than his grandson Joey, meant the manhunt was going to receive every resource available. Still, Scott had old contacts in Munich. Contacts that owed him favors that he’d held onto for a long time. He’d had a hunch they might just prove useful.

He’d been right.

A few phone calls on his scrambled satellite phone during the train ride from Prague had put him on the trail. Once he arrived, he’d gone into bloodhound mode and rooted the man out. Fortunately, when Scott arrived, Abbas had tried to run from his hideout in an abandoned warehouse in the northern borough of Hasenbergl. Scott had taken great pleasure in shooting the man in the leg to bring him down.

Now it was a matter of what to do with him next.

“I’m not afraid to die,” Abbas said, speaking German.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Scott replied, his German rusty but passable.

Early reports accessed by Jordi Pines, Alpha Team’s tech extraordinaire back in Washington, DC, showed that the BND had been able to determine the bomb had been an explosive vest put into a bag.

“You know nothing about me,” Abbas said.

“I know you chickened out,” Scott said. “If you’re going to blow up a bunch of women and children, you could at least have the decency to blow yourself to hell, too.”

“You’re American,” Abbas said. “You’ll never understand martyrdom. Ascendancy to paradise where I will be eternally rewarded.”

“Then why’d you take off the vest?” Scott said. “Paradise sounds pretty good. Isn’t there supposed to be a bunch of virgins? A land of milk and honey and all?”

Abbas shifted uncomfortably, gripping his bleeding leg. Judging from the amount of blood, the femoral artery hadn’t been hit so he didn’t have a lot of risk of bleeding out. Pity.

“My master has greater plans for me.”

Scott was suddenly more interested. If this little rat had information about other planned attacks, he wanted to get it out of him. “Really? And what’s that?”

“You are an infidel. You wouldn’t understand,” Abbas said.

Scott raised his gun and pointed it at Abbas’s other leg. He made a show of tracing up his leg until the barrel of his Glock was pointed at the man’s groin. “I suggest you tell me, otherwise when you get to Paradise those virgins will be mighty disappointed with the crater you have between your legs.”

Abbas swallowed hard. Beads of sweat had formed on the man’s forehead and brow. Scott was well versed in how to get people to talk, even hardened operatives. He planned to crack this guy open like a walnut. Soon he’d have the guy admitting to every wrong thing he’d done in his life since he’d been a kid.

But then Abbas grinned, and Scott saw the fear in the man’s eyes click off, replaced by resignation and moral indignation.

“Are you a religious man?” Abbas asked.

“No. How about you?”

This brought a small chuckle. “The end of the world is coming. Caused by man. Caused by God. It doesn’t matter. Because in the end, only the righteous will be saved.”

As Abbas spoke the last words, a white foam appeared at the corners of his mouth.

“You better not have just done what I think you did,” Scott said, dropping to a knee.

Abbas convulsed with a choking cough and foam and spittle poured out down his chin.

“Allah Akbar,” Abbas mumbled, his eyes shining bright. “Omega Akbar. Omega Akbar.”

Scott froze in disbelief at the words, thinking his mind was playing a trick on him.

Abbas repeated the words. “Omega Akbar.” Omega is great.

Scott turned Abbas on his side and stuck a finger down the man’s throat. It worked and he gagged and then vomited a thin green bile. Stuck in it were pieces of a fake tooth. The delivery system for the poison Abbas had taken.

Scott grabbed the man by the collar of his jacket and pulled him up to him. “What do you know about Omega?” he said. “What do they have to do with this?”

But the only response he got was the brutal choking sounds of Abbas’s airways constricting and shutting down. His face turned red and then purple as his oxygen depleted. His eyes bulged and his body went rigid in a final back-arching spasm.

And then he was dead.

Scott threw him to the ground.

“Shit!” he shouted, the word echoing through the warehouse. He felt like an idiot. He should have checked the man more thoroughly. Would he have caught the fake tooth? If he was being honest, probably not. His own fake tooth loaded with cyanide was indistinguishable from his other dental work except with an X-ray. Still, he hadn’t even checked. Maybe it was lazy, but it also didn’t fit the MO of a radicalized Islamist to be fitted with a suicide tooth.

But he wasn’t just a radicalized terrorist. He’d somehow known about Omega. Somehow, they were connected to the attack. And he’d lost the first good lead they’d had in months.

He turned back on the coms he’d switched off a few hours earlier and reinserted his earpiece. After a series of clicks, the signal bouncing through a series of secure satellites, the system came back online.

“’E’s back, Director ’Awthorn,” Jordi said, the computer genius’s exaggerated English accent dropping the H’s. Even though the man was born and raised in Jersey, the accent was one of his many unexplained quirks. Mara had vouched for his technical genius and she’d been right. The personality was just an added benefit. “Someone’s been naughty.”

“Jordi, I need you to relook at the list of victims at the Christmas Market attack,” he said. “Omega’s involved.”

“How are they involved?” It was Jim Hawthorn, ex-director of the CIA and legend among operatives. It was widely assumed Hawthorn had retired from the game. But those in the know had been briefed about his new position as director of Alpha Team, an elite group tasked with finding and eliminating the shadowy organization known as Omega. A task at which they’d all failed miserably so far.

Scott bent down and started to rifle through Abbas’s pockets. “I found the bomber. Hassan Abbas wasn’t very talkative, but what he did say was interesting. He knew about Omega.”

A long pause. He imagined Hawthorn standing next to Jordi’s workstation, a horseshoe of computers and large monitors that he played like a virtuoso. He knew Hawthorn would be incredulous Scott’s side trip had actually turned out to involve Omega.

“Explain,” Hawthorn said. He was obviously still not happy with him.

“He said ‘Allah Akbar’ once. But then he switched to saying ‘Omega Akbar.’”

“Jordi, is there an alternative word in Arabic or in any dialects for Omega?” Hawthorn asked.

“No, Mara explored that months ago,” Jordi said. “Before she took ’er leave of absence.”

Leave of absence. Is that what they were calling it now?

“All right,” Hawthorn said. “Bring him in. I’ll inform the BND you have him in custody. They want to have him after you’re done, so be quick about it.”

“There’s going to be a problem with that,” Scott said.

Another long pause on the com-link. He was glad he couldn’t see Hawthorn’s face.

“Daddy’s not very happy with you right now,” Jordi whispered.

“I didn’t kill him. The guy cracked a cyanide pill in his mouth,” Scott said. “Fake tooth.”

“That’s unusual,” Hawthorn said. “Anything else? Anything on him? Any markings? Tattoos?”

Scott pulled back the man’s clothing. No ink. No scars.

“Nothing.”

“Jordi, let our friends at BND know the location of their bomber.”

“Get me clearance to join them on the investigation. I want to see Abbas’s apartment and see if there’s anything that ties him to Omega.”

“Negative. I need you on the next flight out of Munich back to DC.”

“But we––”

“Scott, I want you—”

“Just a couple of days is all I’m—”

“Dammit, Scott. Will you just listen to me?” Hawthorn said, raising his voice. The sound shocked Scott. Hawthorn was always in control. There was a pause on the line. Hawthorn had his attention. The next two words sent chills through his body. “Jacobslav Scarvan.”

Scott pressed his earpiece in more firmly. “What did you say?”

When Hawthorn responded, his voice was calm, but Scott heard the stress still there. “Scarvan’s back. I don’t know how it’s possible after all these years, but he’s back.”

Scott felt his stomach turn over as the implications hit him. No wonder Hawthorn was on edge. “Okay, I’ll be on the next plane,” Scott said. “And Jim. We’ll sort this out. I promise.”

“I’m waiting to brief the president when you arrive,” Hawthorn said. “And Scott.”

“Yeah?”

“We need Mara for this.”

He nodded, not sure how he was going to pull that off. But he knew he had to.

“Are you there?” Hawthorn said.

“I’m here. Have Jordi send me her location when I land. I’ll take another shot at her. She’s not going to like it.”

“She may not have a choice,” Hawthorn said. “See you stateside. Be safe.”

Scott terminated the connection. Standing in the middle of the abandoned warehouse, Abbas’s dead body at his feet, he had a sudden feeling of being watched. He spun around, gun raised, checking the shadows. Nothing.

He laughed nervously at himself, the sound coming across hollow and scared in the large open space. Jacobslav Scarvan. It didn’t seem possible.

If it were true, then the world had just gotten a lot more dangerous.

As he left the building, he wondered what it was going to take to make Mara understand that simple truth.

Mara’s ass hurt. She shifted her position in her saddle for the hundredth time that day only to find a few seconds’ worth of comfort before the ache started again. She’d endured covert ops in the jungles of Southeast Asia, the tundra of Mongolia, and the desert sands of Yemen. She’d trained with Navy SEALs and Force Recon Marines. She was going to be damned if a horse named Buttercup was going to get the best of her.

“You doing okay?” Rick Hallsey asked. He handled his horse like he’d popped out of the womb right into a cattle drive.

“No problem,” Mara said. “Buttercup here is great.”

As if on cue, Buttercup lowered her head to the ground and munched on a full mouth of grass. Mara pulled up on the reins, but the mare ignored her.

“Yeah, you’re really showing her who’s boss,” Rick laughed.

Mara didn’t mind Buttercup stopping. She was enjoying the view, and not the majestic Grand Tetons that stretched in front of her against a perfect bluebird sky. The sight of Rick was enough for her. Gone was his Secret Service tailored suit, replaced with jeans, light denim shirts, and a tan leather jacket with a shearling collar. He looked like an African American Marlboro Man, if the Marlboro Man had an extra twenty pounds of muscle and was an expert marksman.

“We’ve achieved homeostasis,” Mara said.

“Homeostasis,” Rick deadpanned. “Do tell.”

“Didn’t they teach that word at Yale?” she said. Kidding him about his Ivy League education and his academic prowess was a constant riff between them. He was likely the most educated agent on the president’s protective detail. His mind was what most attracted him to her. The handsome face, wide smile, and stacked muscles didn’t hurt, either.

“I know what it means,” Rick said. “They finally got around to teaching it to us in the last week of getting my master’s in Theology at Georgetown.”

“Oh, you went there. I see how it is,” she said, finally pulling Buttercup’s head up and getting her going again. “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

“Homeostasis. A relatively stable equilibrium between independent elements,” he said. “Key words relatively stable and independent elements. While the independence remains, there’s never total stability.”

A pheasant flew out from a bush next to the trail. The sudden movement startled Buttercup, who reared back and then bolted forward. It was all Mara could do to grab on to the saddle horn to keep herself on the horse. Within seconds, Rick’s horse was next to hers, slowing her down.

“You all right?” he asked once they’d stopped.

She patted Buttercup’s neck and repositioned herself once again in the saddle. “I just want to know how much you paid the pheasant to make your point.”

They shared a nice laugh together and the world felt better to Mara than it had in a long time. She still grieved her sister Lucy’s death. Finding the right balance of sharing responsibility for her nephew Joey between her and his grandparents was still a challenge, but getting easier. But no amount of therapy was going to erase the bitterness from the events of last year. She and her father had an unspoken pact to leave what happened alone for now. Likely not the healthiest decision, but one they’d both been thankful for. And one she’d not found difficult to live by. The blood on her hands from that night on the Arlington Memorial Bridge had washed off, but the demons were still alive and well, even six months after the fact. She knew she’d need to face all the implications from that night eventually, but not yet.

On top of all that, the sense of futility chasing Omega hadn’t helped things. It wasn’t until she’d begun her leave of absence from the nascent Alpha Team that her life felt like it was gluing back together again. She was finally seeing a path forward. And she was happy that path for right now included Rick Hallsey.

But it was beco