They’d been walking for two hours when the jungle’s character began to change. The oppressive heat remained, but the sounds shifted—fewer birds, more insects, an underlying tension that skittered beneath her skin.
“Contact ahead,” Wong whispered, bringing the entire column to an immediate halt.
Chloe pressed against a tree trunk, feeling the rough bark through her soaked shirt as she tried to control her breathing.
Voices echoed through the trees ahead—multiple speakers, too distant to identify language or intent but close enough to suggest organized movement. Military or paramilitary forces, advancing through territory they controlled.
She watched Tobias take cover behind a fallen log. His entire body seemed to shiver, or tremble.
Huh.She knew the man—he couldn’t be that afraid...
The voices grew closer, accompanied by the sound of equipment and heavy footsteps crushing vegetation. The air carried new odors—gun oil and unwashed bodies, a too-familiar mixture of tobacco and cheap soap that seemed to follow military units regardless of nationality.
She blamed her history of too many war-zone assignments for that piece of insight.
Move along, move?—
“Drop your weapons and come out slowly.”
The command came in accented English, delivered with the authority of someone accustomed to immediate obedience.
Oh.
Maybe if she didn’t move?—
And then, just like that, they were surrounded. Soldiers—maybe a dozen of them, armed, but not in the fatigues of the Tatmadaw. Still, weapons trained on them.
Captain Wong stepped out of his hiding place, hands up. “Don’t. Shoot.”
But even as he said it, the sharp copper taste of fear filled her mouth.
And all she could think was... she should have answered her phone.
What on earth was he doing here?
Again.
Easton “Skeet” Blackwood stood outside a second-floor apartment in one of Chiang Mai’s working-class neighborhoods, raising his fist to knock on Chloe Silver’s door.
Chloe’s apartment sat above a charming white villa like a secret hideaway, accessible by an external staircase that curved up past flowering hibiscus and hanging baskets of purple petunias. A little haven in the middle of a busy street.
Beyond the gated entrance, the narrowsoistretched out—concrete buildings pressed together like dominoes waiting to fall. The ground floor housed noodle shops, motorcycle-repair stalls, and tiny convenience stores that spilled goods onto cracked sidewalks.
Banana trees and scraggly bougainvillea sprouted from every gap between buildings. The air hung thick with competing aromas—grilling pork from a cart vendor, diesel fumes from passing songthaews, the sweet rot of overripe mangoes. And underneath it all, fish sauce. The base note that seemed to live in Thailand’s concrete.
Two days. Two days Chloe had been missing—at least, according to her crazy-worried sister Selah. But yeah, he got it. In Myanmar territory, two days missing meant the odds shifted from rescue to recovery.
Nope. Not today.Mission failure wasn’t an option.
“You look for Miss Chloe?”
He turned.
A woman emerged from the apartment below and climbed up the stairs. Seventy-something, with sharp eyes that missed nothing. She wore a traditional Thai blouse in faded blue and enough gold jewelry to suggest modest prosperity.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m a friend from America. Her family’s worried.”
“I am Mrs. Saetang. She live upstairs six months now.” She studied him.