“You will have no need for boots, but it does not matter.”

“They’re comfortable. I just got them broken in good.”

“Keep them.” A favor. Bare, cracked teeth showed in the skull. The Boatman usually had little to say, but he and Kyle Swanson had known each other for a very long time.

Swanson took off his boonie cover and put it on top of the stack, tucking it so that the eagle, globe, and anchor emblem of the United States Marine Corps remained visible. Then he removed the plastic-laminated photograph of a beautiful young woman with dark hair and eyes, kissed it, and placed it on the pile.

“Is there anything else?”

“No.”

“Very well.” The Boatman extended a long, bony hand. Swanson grabbed it for support as he stepped aboard and took a seat among his latest five kills. Ali bin Assam, looking gray and with a big hole through him, was beside him.

Swanson felt the small vessel rock gently as the Boatman shoved off, pushing hard on the oar to begin the passage across that black river to whatever was over there where the flames danced along a brimstone beach.

At least I still have my boots, he thought. At least I still have my soul.

Then the hand grabbed his shoulder.

CHAPTER 2

KYLE! LET’S GO, LAD. Time to do some shooting.” Sir Geoffrey Corn well pushed gently on Swanson’s shoulder, awakening him with a start. As a former colonel in the British Special Air Services, Jeff understood that warriors sometimes have dreams, and his keen gray eyes beneath bushy brows studied the sniper, who had been twitching in his sleep.

Swanson blinked in the bright sunshine that made the Aegean Sea glow like burnished copper. The boat was rocking gently, but this was not a death cruise. The fucking Boatman didn’t get him this time. Instead, he was safe aboard the Vagabond, one of Jeff’s favorite toys. One hundred and eighty feet long and twenty-nine feet wide, the yacht was as sleek as a needle and carried five luxurious cabins and a crew of eleven, plus a full-time captain. A pair of 3,240-horsepower engines thrummed quietly somewhere below the polished teak decks.