SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1) by J.T. Patten

am so sorry, Maggie. Things are going to change. Maybe Christina and I can talk about adopting again. I think I could be better the second time around.
    The director of Sana’a International Airport security hung up the phone and ordered his men to keep looking. He had been informed to let this man from the embassy just sit for a while in a locked room. He was supposed to be detained long enough to miss his flight with no interaction from the guards.
    Apparently, from what little the director understood of the reason for detaining the American, there was some internal U.S. counterintelligence issue about whom the man may be meeting in Kuwait if he made his flight. After an hour or two they were to come in and apologize for the error and confusion.
    It was a good thing that one of the guards had decided to go by the room to listen to the caged American animal and heard nothing other than silence. When they had finally unjammed the lock and entered the room to check on him, he was gone. They quickly checked to see if he had boarded his flight and learned that he had not checked in.
    Where was he?
    No one else had any record of another ticket being purchased, and if the U.S. Embassy was telling the truth, there were very limited flights now going to Kuwait.
    The director was somewhat remorseful that his senior man did not keep a guard at the door, but after all they were just supposed to hold him. Why should airport security have to babysit a relatively non-threatening staffer? He suspected that perhaps his security team had gone for an hour chew. It occurred to him a chew would be good right about now. A few more hours.
    The real Nigel exited the airport and texted a friend. He was going to go to the market for some qat, upgrade his hotel, get some clothes and hang out with some friends new and old. Perhaps he would stay another week. He wanted to bang that pre-med girl from New Zealand who had arrived in town a couple days ago. She would be with everyone this afternoon. Perhaps he could play a sympathy card appealing to her proclivities towards helping her common man. That’s it, he thought. “I was robbed on my way to the airport and roughed up a bit.”
    Nigel saw a series of stone stairs. Without giving it a thought, he hurled himself down the steps pulling his arms and knees against some of the rough edges of rock as he fell. When he landed at the bottom he admired his abrasions and the prospects of the evening.

Chapter 13
    T he cleaner located his second stashed car a few blocks away. The quiet Chicago neighborhood was quickly coming alive. He had to get moving before Donald got home.
    From the trunk he grabbed a sawed off Mossberg shotgun which he had loaded earlier that day and double-checked for shells. The shotgun was placed in the rear passenger side foot well for easy retrieval. A thin blanket was tossed over it in the event of a fast visual police check.
    The cleaner’s record would be spotless as his alias had been seasoned now with only the occasional parking ticket or traffic ticket that was promptly paid in full to augment the fictitious cover as true life.
    He tied a blue bandana around his forehead and donned dark sunglasses before checking the GPS transmission reading from the device he had placed under the vehicle Donald was now driving.
    Right on target, Donald. Keep going. Don’t slow up, homie .
    It wasn’t the cleaner’s position to ask questions but this job was nagging him a bit. He thought the killing of the teenager was overkill for a judge’s assassination. On the inside of the house there hadn’t been any legal certificates or diplomas in the den area walls. That wasn’t typical for a judge. Why would he need to take the girl’s laptop and not the judge’s computer or thumb drives? There had been a few jobs now like this that were nagging at him a bit.
    He remembered being a soldier. He had liked that so much more. He even missed the work and his team in Kabul. He had to keep reminding