Page 3 of Redeeming Meg

Hagar is involved.

How many innocents would he harm? Why attack the embassy? Who was the missing person?

Tommy. Her heart lurched as his thin face and big eyes flashed through her memory. It couldn’t be. He was safe in the US.

Wasn’t he?

Jessie had gotten him a job with the Agency as an analyst. He’d put in for an overseas position. They’d sent him to Afghanistan during the pullout, and two hours after he’d landed, his sister had been murdered.

My fault.

Meg toyed with the phone, aching to call Flynn and make sure Jessie’s brother was okay. Instead, she dialed Tommy’s number.

The call went to voicemail. A generic, computerized bot instructed her to leave a message, except the mailbox was full. Tommy never used a voice assistant—the nerd loved to personalize his recordings with random Neitchze quotes. His favorite?He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Puzzles and mysteries always sucked Meg in. Getting revenge did, too.

She waved back at the young boy. He motioned for her to join him and his friends. “Do you want to play?” he called in Spanish.

I have to speak for her. Make sure Tommy’s not involved with this.It would be just like him to go after Hagar alone. “Not today,” she replied.

Then she reared back and, with all her might, chucked the phone into the sea. There was a key waiting for her and her own personal why.

TWO

0400 hours

Somewhere over the Atlantic

Declan Reid wasthree days past needing a shower, six months past a haircut.

Surrounded by crates of military cargo and the mindless drone of four C-5M Super Galaxy engines miles over the ocean, his mind was elsewhere. Only hours before, he’d been trading bullets with a Colombian cartel on the outskirts of Bogotá. Now, he had bigger problems.

Much bigger.

Meg.

Declan took a deep breath and shoved the thought away. He was a professional. One woman wasn’t going to commandeer ten years of intense training.

The cavernous interior of the C-5 cargo plane was dimly lit with the ghostly glow of LED lighting strips silhouetting rows of giant cargo crates packed tightly together. The air was stale and cold. The behemoth of a plane was never meant to transportpeople. There was barely enough room for stretching, less matter standing. It was enough to make anyone claustrophobic.

It didn’t seem to bother Spencer Sterling.

“You’re going to get us killed one of these days,” Declan called out.

Spence and Declan had been in more tight spots together than he could count, but being smuggled onto a military supply run as crates of ‘tactical equipment’ was a new one for both of them. Five hours in the cargo bay with nothing but their thoughts had put them both on edge. Or so he had thought. Spence actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

The bastard chuckled. Moving nimbly from stack to stack, exploring the containers in the bay, a resounding thud echoed each time he jumped between gaps in the stacks.

Who knew what was in those crates?

“Any word from Del?” He maneuvered back to where Declan sat. Del was their eyes and ears and had more technical expertise in computer systems than anyone at Langley. If he couldn’t get through to them on the Galaxy, no one could.

“Nothing yet.” Declan touched his earpiece, making sure it was still functioning.

The pair had been assisting the local drug enforcement agency in Bogotá with a group of cartels that had put a US Ambassador at risk. After cornering a few members of the gang on the west side of the city, a tense standoff situation had ended with Flynn—the man himself—on a phone call telling the duo they were being pulled out. Flynn rarely spoke directly to operatives. That alone spoke to the urgency and importance of the new mission. Team Pegasus had arrived shortly after, and despite his questions, Declan had followed orders.

Trusting your team kept you alive.

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