FIVE

Cushioned leather seats. Single-malt scotch. Breakfast cooked to order . . .

Frank Castle, riding in far more luxury than he was used to, sat back in his seat, closed his eyes, and smiled.

“Tired?”

Castle cracked one eye. Across the aisle from him in the Gulfstream’s small cabin, MI-5 liaison Danny Jenkins raised his own drink—hot tea—to his lips, and took a sip.

“No. Too keyed up to be tired.”

Which was the truth. Frank doubted he’d be able to sleep for a while yet—even with the delay in Tampa, his mind was still filled with images from the shoot-out gone sour. The seared edges of his shirt where the squibs had exploded. Astrov, his bodyguards, and Bobby Saint lying dead on the pier, blood pooling around their bodies. Weeks, and Duka, and—

“I would think so.” Jenkins reached underneath his seat and pulled out a briefcase. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind having a look at the file now. It would save me a drive out to your place tomorrow.”

Castle managed a smile. Jenkins had flown all the way from London, via Miami, just to take this charter with him. The man had no doubt been instructed to pry Castle’s eyes open if necessary to make sure he reviewed the information tonight.

Frank held out his hand, and Danny put a file into it. Settling back in his seat, Castle began to read.

It was an MI-5 file on two Chechen extremists who had recently been tracked coming into the United Kingdom from Toronto. MI-5—Jenkins’s service—was asking for any FBI intelligence on the men. It was Frank’s job to determine whether or not to grant that request—to evaluate if any U.S. intelligence sources might be compromised in the process. He was supposed to be making that evaluation on English soil, from his new desk as London FBI liaison. A job that didn’t formally start for another two weeks. But the desk was empty until his arrival, and MI-5 needed the information now.

“Can’t give you a yes or no at this second,” Castle said, handing back the file. “But I’ll make some calls first thing in the morning.”

“Yes. Of course,” Jenkins said.

“But you knew that already. Danny—tell me you didn’t take this trip just to look me over.”

“I didn’t take this entire trip just to look you over.” The man smiled. “Though of course I did have a certain . . . curiosity. Especially after the way Litton raved about you.” Litton was ex-SAS; he and Frank had worked together in Bosnia, when Castle was Major Frank Castle of Delta Force. It was through Litton that Frank had gotten his new job. “No. What we really wanted, Frank, was to get you up to speed on the Chechen situation as soon as possible. It’s not just these two—there’s an entire group of them gathering in the U.K., and they’re definitely up to something big. We’ll want all interested agencies cooperating as soon as possible. We’ll be nexus, but you’ll have access to all that information, of course.”

Castle nodded. He hadn’t heard anything about the Chechens over the last few months, but then, since he’d been Otto Krieg for virtually every day of the last few months, that wasn’t so surprising.

A phone rang. Jenkins reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellular.

“Excuse me,” he said, turning away from Frank and beginning to talk.

So this was what being on a desk was going to be like, Frank thought. Studying paperwork, making decisions, talking them through, and then going home every night to his wife and son.

He couldn’t wait.

He looked at his watch—his brand-new Rolex. They were two hours behind schedule now—not that anyone was meeting him at the airport, he’d given an approximate date and time for his arrival, but Maria knew better than to wait on anything for him, even moving day. Though Castle was still hoping to make it back in time to get the kitchen packed up himself. When they’d moved back east from California, the movers had managed to smash half the bowls in their wedding china, which had caused Maria to forbid anyone but herself from packing fragile items. She’d probably been up half the night getting ready, he thought, picturing her in his mind.

Funny thing was, when he thought of Maria, he always thought of her not as she was now, but as she’d been that first summer after they were married. The way she’d looked as they were saying good-bye, as he was getting shipped off to the Middle East for the first time.

Her bangs longer than they were now, hanging down over her forehead, her eyes misting over with tears, the way they had every time since then when he’d gone off on a mission. Gone off to leave her for months at a time, first alone and then with their son, Will. Castle thought of him now, too—the boy was getting so big, and the hell of it was, he’d missed almost everything so far in his son’s life. The first word, the first step, the first day at school. The parent-teacher conferences, the class plays, the Little League games . . .

But not anymore. He’d sworn it to Maria, to his own father (who had quit the service rather than miss out on Frank’s own childhood), and to himself. Castle had never been able to set aside the needs of the job before, the needs of the world out there; there was so much pain and suffering . . . but he knew now no one person could solve those problems. They were too big. He had to focus on the things closest to him, the things he could take care of. His family. His friends.

Thinking that, he looked down at the Rolex again and remembered Jimmy.

Weeks was somebody else he had to watch out for, take care of, Castle thought, before the man got himself into a hole so deep he couldn’t climb out of it.