“You don’t want to orphan my kid. Well, guess what—neither do I. I’m going to be a father, and that makes me very, very happy. But it isn’t going to change the way I lead my life. That’s not who I am. Marina knows that. You know it, too—that’s why you picked me in the first place.”

“I don’t know that I would have picked you had I realized—”

“I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about then. I’m talking about Epidaurus.”

It was only eight years ago when a twenty-man contingent from the Greek army was detailed to a Cons Op–run interception exercise. The objective was to train the Greeks to detect and deter a growing small-arms trade that made use of Greek freighters. A ship a few miles off the coast of Epidaurus was chosen at random for the exercise. As luck would have it, however, the ship happened to be loaded with contraband. Even worse, a Turkish drug merchant was on board, accompanied by his heavily armed private guard. Things went wrong, terribly wrong, in a cataract of misfortune and misunderstanding. Inexperienced men on both sides panicked: the supervisors from Consular Operations could observe—by means of a digital telescope and the remote listening devices on the frogmen’s suits—but, agonizingly, they were too far away to intervene without jeopardizing the trainees’ safety.

From a small frigate anchored half a nautical mile away, Janson had been horrified by the disastrous unfolding of events; in particular, he recalled the twenty tension-filled seconds in which matters could have gone either way. There had been two bands of armed men, evenly matched. Each individual maximized his own chance of survival by opening fire first. But once the automatic weapons were engaged, the surviving members of the adversary would have no choice but to return fire. It was the sort of suicidal “fair fight” that could easily have resulted in 100 percent fatalities for both sides. At the same time, there was no chance that the Turk’s guards would stand down—it would be seen as a treasonous abdication, ultimately repaid by their own compatriots with a swift death.

“Don’t shoot!” a young Greek shouted. He lay down his weapon, yet the gesture conveyed not fear but disgust. Janson heard his voice tinnily but clearly through the transmitter unit. “Cretins! Dolts! Ingrates! We work for you.”

The jeers of the Turks were boisterous, but the claim was sufficiently bizarre that they demanded further explanation.