Pappy walked over to their table. Kayla squared her shoulders as she prepared herself for a dressing-down. The tall, good-looking man removed his wool cap, revealing tight curls plastered to his head. He ran a hand through them. “You did good out there, Rainford. You took charge. This time I’m going to overlook the fact that we came in three miles short because you made it back in the allotted time. Congratulations! Tomorrow at 0600 we’ll correct that little error.”

Team Three sat with their mouths hanging open. For a second, Sam forgot to chew. She shrugged. This spy/mercenary stuff was a surprise a minute. She watched as Pappy walked through the swinging door that led into the kitchen. Sighing, she stood up to lead her team back to their quarters. At the door she turned around to the others sitting glumly at their table. “Tough luck, guys.”

“Shove it, Rainford,” one of the men said.

Sam laughed. Then she said, “Sit on it, you schmuck.” Then she laughed again when the heckler turned red as she noticed how he was sitting on his chair, more like on the side of his thigh than on his rear end. “You gotta move past the pain, Lukash,” she singsonged. This time the others joined in her laughter.

The second the door closed, Team Five declared war on Team Three.

In the kitchen, Pappy watched the little byplay through the windows on the swinging door. His father’s soft laughter made him turn around. “Go on, say it, Pop!”

“I’m just a cook, son. I don’t know anything about whatever it is you do outside my kitchen.”

Pappy sat down on the stool and laughed. The man sitting across from him was a genius. Years ago he’d taken $25,000 from his savings, another $25,000 from his son’s savings, and invested it in a dot-com company. He bailed out with $150 million, before the crash. Then he bought the mountain from the state and leased it for half that amount to the people his son worked for. Yes, sirree, his old man was a genius.

“Make it work for you, son. You might have to show a little humility, but it’s a wise man who knows when to step backward and cut his losses. She’s just what you want, isn’t she? Why can’t you accept it? Her team is exceptional. They work in sync. They’re tuned to one another. They’re giving you a hundred percent. It doesn’t get any better than that. You keep riding them, and she’s going to call it off. Stop being such a damn robot and be the man I call my son. You’ll be ferrying her down the mountain if you don’t.”

Like he really didn’t know what went on beyond his kitchen. “Were you always such a know-it-all, Pop?”

Kyros rattled something off in Greek that made Pappy laugh.