Page 13 of Code Name: Typhon

“Turn around and meet me at London City.”

“Roger that. Where are we headed?”

“Liverpool.”

“Fuck,” I heard him say under his breath. “Sorry, sir.”

I ended the call without responding.

Even before I boarded the plane, my day took another step closer to hell when I received an alert saying a message was received in the secure app I used when undercover. My alias was Benito Carpinelli, and my alter ego had just received a kill contract.

“Everything all right, boss?” Hornet asked.

“As far from it as you can get. I need you to handle the search for the Countess.”

Even as I spoke the words, I couldn’t believe I’d said them. I was putting an operative who wasn’t yet a Unit 23-er in charge of the rescue mission of one of my team’s best.

There wasn’t time to pull anyone else in, and there was no way I could turn down the contract from the Sicilians. If I did, years of groundwork essential to the success of future missions would be for naught.

If I were the kind of man foolish enough to spit in the eye of fate by saying I believed things were as bad as they could get, I would’ve quickly been proven wrong.

In the three days since Hornet and I parted ways at London City Airfield, Mithras had returned to Gozo, taken a hostage, and as much as everyone on the op tried to prevent it from happening, had been killed by a civilian—the hostage’s grandson.

There was still no communication from or about the Countess. Every passing day made me more certain she was already dead. However, it wasn’t something I would say out loud to anyone. I’d seen plenty of presumed ghosts come back from the dead. Usually, they were bad guys, though, like Mithras.

As morbid as it was, the only thing that had gone right was the hit, which I’d accomplished the day after I received the contract. The man the Sicilians paid “Benito” to kill was also on the Italian government’s most-wanted list. His crime? The rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl who he’d held captive for six years. I’d not lose a moment’s sleep over killing a degenerate, pedophile, rapist and murderer.

Rather than flying directly to London once the contract was fulfilled, I took an alternate route to Greece, where I spent one night. The next day, I traveled to Spain, again for one night, then to Austria. If anyone, regardless of who they were, had been following me, they would’ve been picked up by international law enforcement and immediately extradited to one of Unit 23’s safe houses, where they’d be interrogated—at the minimum.

That was how powerful my team was, and it wasn’t me who’d made it that way. I was one in a long line of commanders, all equally badass, all equally lethal.

On the final leg of my journey, I received a brief compiled by both Oleander and Poseidon, detailing the chain of events leading to Mithras’ death, and the subsequent relocation of his killer, the man’s grandmother, and his aunt. The three would remain at an “undisclosed” location indefinitely, where they’d be under the protection of a former MI6 agent who now owned a private security and intelligence firm. That man, Cortez “Rile” DeLéon, was also one of my closest friends.

Rile and I had served together under the command of Edgar “Jekyll” Hyde, and he was as devastated as me after the death of the man we both considered a mentor.

The other piece of crucial information contained in the brief was that the coalition had a solid lead on the identity of Pharaoh.

I’d been at my flat less than an hour when I received a message from Hornet with the news I dreaded. The Countess’ body had been found. According to the SIS medical examiner, she’d been dead three days, which meant whoever killed her had done it right around the time I received her 1199 message.

Even if I had turned down the Sicilians’ contract and gone to Liverpool instead, I would’ve been too late to save her life. Not that knowing so did a bloody thing to alleviate the guilt I felt.

I slammed the lid of my laptop closed, picked up the glass of whiskey I’d poured as soon as I walked in the door, and hurled it at the wall.

As a man who prided myself on my ability to remain in control regardless of the circumstances, I felt powerless. I had to get my fucking head on straight, which meant I had to rein in Oleander. I couldn’t allow her to operate outside the chain of command any longer. I’d let it go on far too long as it was, and I was prepared to issue an ultimatum. Either she divulged the reason for her obsession, or she’d be out. Not just of Unit 23, but of SIS entirely.

After sending a message to Z, asking him to meet me at twenty-one hundred hours in a private suite at Claridge’s, I left my flat and walked to the hotel. I stopped at the Fumoir for the same drink I’d thrown against the wall once I received Z’s confirmation he’d meet me since I knew I had an hour to kill.

As I sat at the bar, trying to organize my thoughts before conferring with Z, it dawned on me that this was where I’d first seen the woman I couldn’t place. The one who carried too much sadness.

“What’s on your mind, Typhon?” Z asked after I poured him a drink and we both stood looking at the suite’s view of the London skyline.

“I’m sure you’ve heard we lost the Countess.”

“Yes, horrible news. My condolences.”

“I’m ready to move forward in adding Hornet to Unit 23.”

Z nodded. “As hard as it is for me to let him go, he’s proven himself on this mission.”

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