was the former Fifth Special Forces Group operative Jack Gage—a massive six-foot-three man who clocked in at two hundred and fifty pounds. Between his physique and thick, dark beard, he looked like a pirate on steroids, or some sort of professional wrestler. He was a slave to chewing tobacco, a habit he surprisingly hadn’t picked up in the Army, but rather growing up in Minnesota, of all places.
There were also two no-longer-active United States Force Recon Marines on the team—Matt Morrison and Mike Haney. Morrison, a thirty-one-year-old from Alabama, was tall, good-looking, and always ready for a fight. His teammates liked to joke that he had been born with the looks of male stripper and the IQ of the pole. It was an unfair characterization, but as they at least recognized his superior physical attributes, he let the rest of their barbs slide.
The other Marine, Mike Haney, was never knocked for being dumb. In the field, the six-foot-tall leatherneck from Northern California was in charge of all their operational technology. Radios, drones, satellite phones—if it had a battery, Haney was responsible for it. At forty years old, with one of the longest service records on the team, he carried a wealth of experience. He was both an exceptional operator and highly skilled as a leader.
Rounding out the team were Tim Barton and Sloane Ashby. Barton had been with the Navy’s elite SEAL Team known as DEVGRU, formerly called SEAL Team Six. If Gage was built like a professional wrestler, Barton was built like a college wrestler. He was short—only five feet six—but barrel-chested and absolutely fearless. Whenever the team needed a volunteer, the redhead’s hand was always the first to go up. Somewhat OCD, he preferred everything to be in its place—a trait that earned him regular but good-natured ribbing from his teammates.
Sloane Ashby, like Harvath, had been handpicked by the Old Man. The moment he had met her, he knew he had to have her for The Carlton Group. As she was a very attractive blonde in her late twenties, most people never saw past her looks. She had graduated top of her class at Northwestern University, was an accomplished athlete, and had paid her own way through college via the ROTC.
When she enlisted in the Army, she had done so only on the guarantee that she would see combat. She was an amazing soldier. In fact, she had racked up so many kills in Afghanistan that she reached a certain a level of notoriety. The Taliban and Al Qaeda put a price on her head, and a popular magazine did an unauthorized feature on her. As soon as that happened, the Department of Defense pulled her from combat.
She fought to be allowed to go to Iraq, but the answer was an emphatic no. Instead, she was sent to Fort Bragg, where she helped to train Delta Force’s elite all-female unit known as the Athena Project. It was a waste to put such an exceptional operator out to pasture. When Reed Carlton offered her a chance to get back into the thick of the action, she jumped at it.
Sloane could kick doors with the best of them, and that was precisely what she did. Joining The Carlton Group was one of the best decisions she had ever made. From the moment she signed on, it had been everything the Old Man had promised it would be, and more. She was doing exactly the kind of work she had been born to do.
As the jet raced toward Finland, the team members wandered in and out of the galley to grab food, energy drinks, or cups of coffee. Some slept, some read books, and others watched movies or listened to music.
While there was much of the good-natured back-and-forth they had developed as a team, there was also something missing—Harvath.
He was their leader, and it felt not only odd not having him along, but it was also somewhat unnerving. The idea that he, an apex predator who had killed, they liked to joke, more people than cancer, could be captured was difficult to swallow. It meant that he was fallible, human.
He had been Superman to them. But Superman had been captured. And if Superman could be captured, none of them were safe.
They had to get him back—not only because he was their leader but because he was their brother. And because you didn’t let the fucking Russians, of all people, kidnap Superman. That wasn’t how things worked. Not in their world. If