And that’s how he saw himself. He had plenty of friends who wrapped themselves in cloaks of rationalizations, ranging from “There’s a sucker born every minute” to “They stood in the way of progress,” and all the iterations in between. But that wasn’t how he rolled. He knew exactly who and what he was, and Stafford liked that guy.

Once, watching an interview with a movie actor who played a famous serial killer, the actor said, “No one is evil in their own minds. No one looks into a mirror and sees a villain. Villains, like everyone else, have to maintain a worldview that paints them as the good guy, or at least not a distinctly bad one.”

Stafford found that amusing as hell. And maybe it was true for some people in his line of work. But he thought on the whole it was naive. He was a murderer, a contract killer, an occasional trafficker in very young sex workers, and frequently in cahoots with terrorists. That made him a bad guy, and that was what he always wanted to be.

He was not a product of a bad childhood. His folks were great. So were his two sisters and older brother. All of them, fine people. Gentle, supportive, fun. Nor was he bullied in school. He had no chemical imbalances, no brain tumors, and was not anywhere on the autism spectrum. He was pretty sure he wasn’t even a sociopath, though perhaps an argument could be made.

Nope, he was just a bad guy.

A very good-looking, well-hung, and seriously rich bad guy.

And that made him very, very happy.

CHAPTER 28

PHOENIX HOUSE

OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE

The four members of Havoc Team were in a corner of the mess hall. Top and Bunny, Belle and Andrea. There were other people around—operators from the other teams—Bedlam and Chaos; scientists and lab techs, general staff. No one came and sat with the four remaining members of Havoc Team. No one even came over to chat.

They knew.

Everyone knew.

Colonel Joe Ledger had gone off the reservation. That was the expression, and it carried with it a lot of weight, a lot of doubt and uncertainty. A lot of fear.

Ledger was the cornerstone of the field operations division. To everyone who worked for Mr. Church, Ledger was something of a mythological figure. He was the jovial party guy who was everybody’s friend when the beer was flowing and the steaks sizzling. He was the operator you wanted coming when you’d been praying for the Seventh Cavalry to ride over the hill. He was the guy people told stories about without having to exaggerate a single detail. He was a warrior who stood between the innocent and harm, preferring to take the shot meant for the good guys. He was the one who’d actually saved the world. Time and again.

And now he was gone.

Just … gone.