Point Of No Return

He had to be the laughingstock of the international-security community. Apparently, if anyone needed a decorated, former Delta Force operative with ten years of undercover experience and his team of highly trained specialists to impersonate fairy-tale characters, Chet Stryker was their man.

He’d wanted to run Stryker International on his terms. With his choice of assignments.

But clearly pride wouldn’t pay the bills. And they had accomplished their mission—to protect six-year-old Gretchen Brumegaarden and one hundred of her closest friends and family members from a terrorist threat. Still, it felt like a compromise. He needed to do everything he could to make his little company a success, hoping to convince himself that he hadn’t blown everything when he’d retired early from the military.

Since the day he’d kicked Mae out of his life, it seemed he’d made one glaring mistake after another.

“We’re taking the midnight train back to Prague,” Chet said, pressing the automatic unlock on their economy rental car.

“No airplane?” Artyom, his computer techie from Russia, ran to catch up, toting his own provisions, most of them contained in his laptop case. He’d been recruited by Wick, a former Green Beret whom Chet had enticed to leave special ops after a particularly brutal tour. Chet’s business partner Vicktor—a former FSB agent—had closed the deal, talking Artyom into joining Stryker International. Luke Dekker, former Navy SEAL, acted as medic and team explosives expert. Now all Chet needed was a profiler, perhaps a negotiator, and, yes, a pilot.

He still hadn’t found someone as skilled as Mae. Not even close. He’d been setting his sights lower and lower, until he was looking at recruits fresh out of a bush pilot school in Alaska. He needed Mae. But every time he opened his phone to call her, his chest would burn, old wounds stirring to life, and he’d shut his phone and the image of her from his mind.

He wouldn’t—couldn’t—put someone he loved in the line of fire. Been there, done that.

Chet opened the trunk and threw in the gear. “No airplane. This check barely covers our expenses and salaries for the next month. An airplane means another dwarf suit in your near future.”

Chet needed a break, something to put his business on the map. Something big, international and newsworthy.

Maybe even something to make him feel like a soldier, a patriot, again. Anything but a cartoon character playing a charade.

The wind blew against the ancient elm trees ringing the property, picking up his rather un-Snow-White scent. “Let’s get out of here.”

His cell phone vibrated as he opened the car door. Fishing it out of his pocket, he looked at the number—and stilled.

“You drive, Wick.” Chet tossed him the keys, walked over to the passenger side and opened the phone. “Chet here.”

“It’s…me.”

“I know.” Wow, did he know, because just like that, everything he’d felt that day when he’d met Mae Lund—the longing, the hope, even the delight—rushed back and took a swipe at his voice. He found it, although it emerged a little roughed up as he turned from the car. “How are you, Mae?”

“Not so good.” Was there a tremor in her voice?

“What is it?”

“It’s my nephew, Josh. He’s missing.”

“Then call the police.”

“He’s in Georgia.”

“I’m not sure what I can do from here—”

“Georgia, the country!” Her voice resounded loud and clear, and on the edge of desperate, despite being on the other side of the world. Uh, she was on the other side of the world, right? “Where are you?”

“Getting on a plane in Seattle.”

“Let me guess—to Prague.”

Silence. Then, “No, to Georgia. Why would I come to Prague?”

Wow, that hurt, more than he would have ever guessed. Because for a second he’d been hoping, wildly perhaps, that she’d forgotten how he’d stomped her pride into tiny bits, and instead remembered that once upon a time he really cared what happened to her. What she thought about. What food she liked and what movies she saw. What her dreams were…outside the ones that included the rather negative byproduct of him watching her die, that was.

“You’re going to Georgia?”

“Where else would I be going, Chet? Honolulu? My nephew is missing, and I speak Russian, which means I can probably get by, thanks to the years of Russia occupation. My sister is losing her mind, and I think I can find him. I know he was working near Gari…in a village called Burmansk.” Her voice dropped. “I was hoping that…maybe…oh…never mind.”

“Wait!” Don’t hang up. “You want me to find him?”

“No. I can find him. I was hoping you could tap into your contacts in Georgia to help me.” Her voice dropped.

“You know the ones.”

“Yes, I know the ones.” He climbed into the car as Wick started it up and cranked the air conditioner. “I’d forgotten that I’d told—”

“I didn’t.” She said it softly, as if the details of the letters he’d written while he’d been in Taiwan had mattered to her. Only she didn’t know it all, because if she did she would never have called, would never have asked him to dig into his past.

“I…I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, Mae. I don’t even know if I can find the right people anymore.” Not to mention the bounty on his head in that particular country. Mae could be walking right into the fallout that he’d always dreaded. “Have you called the embassy?”

“Yes, but their official position is that Josh ran away with a local village girl.”

“Maybe he did.”

“He’s not that irresponsible. He calls home every Sunday night, and was the only kid in his Sunday school who earned a gold star for perfect attendance. He’s an Eagle Scout, for Pete’s sake. He’s not going to just take off and scare everyone around him!”

“Calm down, Mae. I’m sure he’s already back.”

“He’s not back, Chet, that’s the point!”

“But it doesn’t mean you should go running off to Georgia! There’s still a war going on over there!”

“Exactly why we need to find him. What if he’s been kidnapped?”

“What if you get kidnapped?” He took a breath and lowered his voice to something that resembled calm. “What if something happens to you?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

But it would; he knew it in his gut. He’d seen the civil war between Georgia and Ossetia up close, and with Russia as Ossetia’s new comrades, one nasty misfire from the Georgian side and the entire mess could reignite. Just give the Ossetians one reason, and no amount of international tongue-clucking would keep them from unloading their Kalashnikovs right into the rag-tag Georgian defenses.

And Mae would be caught in the middle, a beautiful redheaded American pawn, leverage for whatever terrorist group nabbed her.

“Please don’t go, Mae. It’s not safe—”

“Last time I checked, I didn’t need your approval. You’re not my boss.”

He clenched his jaw so tight he thought his molars might crack. “I can’t believe you’re doing this again! Have you learned nothing about acting on impulse?”

He realized he was shouting when Wick glanced at him. He exhaled slowly as they turned onto Karl Liebknecht Street. The architecture in this part of old Berlin betrayed the age of the city—the dangling chandeliers that lined the streets, the colonnades of the stately former Third Reich buildings, the grandeur of the Brandenburg Gate, now silent and looming over them. “I’m sorry, Mae, that wasn’t fair—”