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into the worst kind of prison you can imagine if we’re not.”
    “I’m in,” Reaper repeated with a lot more force than you would expect from looking at him. I had known that whatever I had voted for, Reaper would have my back.
    I nodded. “Carl?”
    My oldest friend grunted as he leaned forward in his chair. We had worked together for a very long time. When we had first met, Carl had been a Portuguese mercenary helping to overthrow an African government. Between the two of us we’d killed piles of people in dire need of killing, and a quite a few who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’d robbed, conned, stolen, and murdered our way across four continents. The contents of Carl’s folder were a mystery. He was like my brother, but I didn’t know what he had left behind in the Azores all those years ago. He wasn’t exactly the conversational sort.
    Carl shrugged. “Whatever . . . I’m in.”
    The last member of my crew hesitated. I knew that Train’s folder contained pictures of his estranged wife and little girl. Omaha, Nebraska wasn’t out of Eddie’s reach. Train’s ex had divorced him while he had been serving time. She didn’t like being married to a criminal, but she apparently had no moral problems cashing the checks he mailed to her after every single one of our jobs, either. Train loved his young daughter more than life itself, and I could see that fact roiling around behind his eyes as he made up his mind.
    “I can’t,” he said simply. “Sorry, Lorenzo.”
    I nodded.
    “Ah, Train, come on,” Reaper whined. “We need you, big guy.”
    “I don’t trust Eddie,” Train spat. “And you’d be an idiot to trust him. He knows about my kid, man. I’ve got to go get her.”
    I extended my hand. He hesitated only briefly before crushing it in his big mitt. He was one of only a handful of people in this world that I actually trusted. I had worked with Train for nearly a decade and his decision didn’t surprise me at all. For a man who could snap a neck with one hand, he had a remarkably soft heart. “Watch your back,” I ordered.
    He gave me a sad smile. We both knew that this was the end of a long run. “No problem, chief.”

    Train took his share of the money and slipped out that night. At the time, none of us had realized that our hotel room had been bugged even though we had swept the room.
    The next morning I had awoken to a knock on our door. When I answered, gun in hand, the messenger was gone, but there had been a cardboard box left there addressed to me. The size and weight told me what it was even before I opened it. Train’s severed head had been neatly wrapped in newspaper. The only other contents were a note.
    I AM WATCHING YOU .

Chapter 1:
Job Security

    VALENTINE
    ATC Research & Development Facility
    North Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
    January 18
    0330

    I made my way around Building 21, rattling door handles as I went. It was the second time I’d checked this building during my shift, and I didn’t expect to find it unsecured. Still, the night-shift maintenance guys had a habit of leaving doors unlocked as they did their rounds, so I often had to relock them during my rounds.
    Finding nothing out of place, I returned to the front of the building. Mounted on the wall next to the front door was a small metal button, resembling a watch battery. I retrieved from my pocket an electronic wand, and touched the tip of it to the metal button on the wall.
    Nothing happened. “Goddamn it,” I grumbled, wiping both the button and the end of the wand with my finger. The wand was my electronic leash. As I hit the buttons across the facility, the wand recorded the time that I was there, thus proving to my employers that I was actually doing my job. However, if there was any moisture at all on either the button or the wand, it wouldn’t register.
    I tried the button again. Still, nothing happened. Swearing some more, I pulled a small cloth out of my pocket and wiped down