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Prologue

Horn of Africa

When Stella Carson was eight years old, her mother rented the movie Out of Africa so Stella could envision where her mom lived when she left Tallahassee for Peace Corps trips Those i her prayers And through a summer with her brothers as babysitters while their father drove his UPS route

In the fall, a photo of hera rocky start of third grade when she landed in the principal’s office for a playground fight Nobody would irl off to school, even if her braids were lopsided with mismatched bows Stella kne to punch like a boy, thanks to her three older brothers

Her siblings had failed tothe infarounds

But she’d survived the principal’s punish hermedicine and mosquito nets to needy kids The school wouldn’t suspend her anyway because they needed Stella’s perfect scores on standardized tests Tuning out the principal’s lecture, she’d stroked one of the ers, tabulated the nu tiles, and pretended she didn’t need her mother

When Stella was fifteen her h ti why Melanie Carson chose to leave her fan country It didn’t er, and Stella craved answers Understanding Order

By college, she’d realized if she didn’t decipher what really happened the day her mother died and find peace for the restlessness inside her, there would be no building a fa she desperately wanted So she’d changed her major to criminal justice, landed a job in Interpol’s Aies into wrangling an assignment in Africa

Here Now In a country every bit as nificent as in the s about the place that stole her mother

Finally, she could piece together her mom’s last days Find answers about her ain closure

Although her whole quest would be moot if she didn’t squeezeat breakneck speed along the Arabian Sea into the Gulf of Aden

Stella thumped the already maxed throttle, the ic told her the engine didn’t have anything les to take the choppy sea faster She stayed well clear of the other vessels just as they stayed away from her Everyone kept their distance in these lawless waters

The hull’s nose popped over a wave and slaue The metallic taste of blood filled herhold of the water and shooting forward again Seconds counted Ti

A team of Navy SEALs and a pair of Air Force pararescue on her to be in place for the pickup if things rong with their helicopter rendezvous Sure, those special operations dudes could swim for miles, but even theout in shark-infested, pirate-riddled waters

Sea spray stung her overheated face as the sun hter, her eyes on the sonar and radar screens feeding ies of the SEALs and pararescuemen—also known as paraju, about to “count coup” on a suspected pirate frigate, a stealthy tap-and-go