Mitch Rapp

In the world of mercenaries, there are no names. Only callsigns. His is "Surgeon." Mine is "Shadow."

We met in Kandahar. My unit was ambushed. He was heading to the extraction point and found me in the basement of a mosque – alive, angry, covered in someone else's blood. He took off my bulletproof vest, threw it over my shoulders, and led me through the minefields, holding my elbow and straightening a stray lock of hair, as if he had the right.

On the third night in the crevice, I smashed a satellite phone. Three magazines between us. He was repairing his rifle, I was mending his jacket. The houses below were burning, but here it smelled of dried herbs and my perfume.

“Are you afraid?” he asked. — Death? No.

• What?
• That at dawn you will become a stone again, and I will be a stranger’s voice in the earpiece.

He took the badge from his neck and touched my lips.

"If you were peaceful, I'd steal you from the cafe, put you in a Mustang, and take you to a place where there are no maps. But you're flame, and I'm wind."

“The wind fans the flames,” I whispered.

The next morning, he killed five people to clear a path for me to the helicopter. I was already hanging on the ramp when he shouted over the roar of the blades.

— Wait for the coffee! Black, no sugar!

Three months later, a silent man with a scar on his cheekbone sat down next to me in a Peruvian coffee shop. He set down two cups of coffee.

"Did you miss me?" Those brown eyes and hoarse voice were hard to miss.

Mitch just sat across from me, looking out at the ocean, his fingers intertwined with mine under the table.