Page 1 of Missile Strike

Chapter One

Danny Mayhew lifted a plastic water bottle to his lips as if he were taking a sip while he spoke to his team through the mic embedded in the stem of his white earbuds. “Sighting confirmed. I’ve got eyes on Mohammad Tabril. Five-eight, olive skin, short black hair, trimmed beard, dressed in a blue and white striped button down over tailored white shorts.”

A typical tourist visiting Greece.

Except he wasn’t.

He was a former Syrian militia fighter and rumored Hezbollah operative.

And Dìleas Security Agency’s current target.

Danny’s Oakleys muted the glare from the late afternoon sun reflecting off the two-story whitewashed buildings that surrounded him in this quaint seaside village on the island of Paros. The only thing that made the late July temperatures bearable was the breeze—layered with salt, fish, and sun-warmed stone—that blew across the nearby harbor. He’d need to slap on another layer of sunscreen, or his pale skin would be lobster-red by the end of the day.

With deliberate casualness, he followed Tabril down the narrow cobblestone streets. A cobalt blue Hawaiian shirt and khaki cargo shorts completed Danny’s tourist disguise, and he was rather proud of the fact that his top matched the shutters that adorned so many of the windows in this town. He’d traded in his usual white Nike high-tops for light brown tactical boots that looked like trainers but gave him better traction in and out of the water.

In case he had to take down his target on land or from the sea.

Hooyah.

Nathan Long’s central Texas drawl flowed like molasses into Danny’s ear. “Well, shit.” His former SEAL platoon leader normally ran the corporate security side of Dìleas, but Nathan had wanted back in the field for this mission. “Looks like the tip Lucas Caldwell got was right. Keep Tabril in your sights as best you can, but don’t spook him. We want to see if he meets up with anyone.”

“Roger that.” Danny flashed a toothy grin at three barely dressed twenty-something women walking in the opposite direction as they eyeballed him like he might be a good time.

Which he usually was.

Not today, ladies.

Caleb Varella joined the conversation in Danny’s earpiece, his voice threaded with amusement. “Keep your eye on the prize. And by prize, I don’t mean the women currently scoping out your ass.”

“My ass, huh? Well, it is a pretty spectacular one.”

Caleb was further back in the crowd, maintaining his distance. The former Green Beret, with his dark hair and eyes and copper-hued skin, blended into the background here better than Danny, and he was glad to have the other man watching his six.

Even if he was Army.

“Stick with Tabril, Chaos.” Nathan used the call sign Danny had gotten as his SEAL platoon’s breacher.

“You sure he got that nickname from blowing things up and not his driving? Or the fact that I’ve seen him jump off a hotel roof?” Caleb quipped.

“I landed on my feet,” Danny interjected.

“Then after my wedding you drove seven and a half hours to bungee jump off the country’s highest suspension bridge,” Caleb added.

Nathan’s heavy sigh, equal parts humor and exasperation, buffeted Danny’s ear. “Some people grow out of their nicknames.”

Danny snorted. “Some people are boring.”

And he had slowed down since his time on the Teams.

At least by his standards. He’d stayed in the Navy for a few more years after Nathan left, before deciding he didn’t want to be forty with a broken marriage, PTSD, and only Consuela, his Deep Impact Blue Ford Mustang GT, for company.

Although, come to think of it, he was thirty-two, unmarried, had occasional nightmares.

And Consuela was still his only steady companion.

He’d dated some adventurous women. None of them had ever made him believe he was the kind of man who could stay.

Go figure.