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bathroom. Next to a nice, thick cheeseburger, there was nothing he looked forward to more after an overseas trip than a long, hot American shower. It just felt different.
    Stepping into the stall, he closed his eyes and let the water pound against his sore body. The work he did was both mentally and physically demanding. He took extremely good care of himself and it showed. He was in better shape than most men half his age. Nevertheless, he was getting older and he knew it. He could still carry out the ops just fine; it was the recovery time that was beginning to take longer. Someday, he was going to have to face the facts that this tended to be a younger man’s game and consider moving in a different direction. The Old Man had told him as much, and was grooming him to take over the business someday. As far as Harvath was concerned, though, that day was still a long way away.
    He could have stood there in the shower forever, allowing his half-hypnotizedmind to drift in the heat and the steam, but there was work to do. Taking a deep breath, he flipped the temperature selector all the way to cold and exhaled. As the icy water hit his skin, he forced himself to count to thirty.
    Harvath was convinced that the amount of cold that SEALs were forced to endure over the course of their careers eventually made them unable to deal with it at all. His observations were anecdotal at best, but he knew way too many guys who had opted for warm-weather climates after getting out and who never set foot anywhere else even remotely cold for the rest of their lives.
    He was determined to never let anything, much less cold, beat him and so he stood in the shower every morning and punched cold right in the face. Of course it punched him right back, but it was like getting a double espresso for free and it always left him feeling invigorated. Today was no different.
    Climbing out of the shower, he dried off and tied the towel around his waist. On his right side was a bruise he hadn’t noticed or felt any pain from until now. It must have come during the taking of the tanker or rescuing the captain in Somalia. You bump into tons of things in close quarters battle and don’t notice until after the fact. He was afraid to look down and see what his legs looked like. The joke in close quarters battle, or CQB, was that the shinbone’s only purpose was to find furniture in a darkened room.
    Harvath glanced in the mirror. His face was tanned from the training they had done down in the Gulf of Mexico before leaving for Somalia. His neck and forearms were, too. A few days of R&R to tan the rest of his body would be pleasant and for a moment, he allowed himself the delusion that maybe the Old Man’s new client had an easy job for them someplace nice. That caused him to smile. The Carlton Group wasn’t in the “easy job” business. And as far as “someplace nice” was concerned, as long as it was someplace “nicer” than the pit of human misery and suffering that was Somalia, he’d be thrilled.
    Noticing that he’d missed a spot while shaving, he bypassed the cheap, plastic disposable razors sitting in a glass jar on the bathroom counter and unzipped the vanity kit from the private jet. He was glad he’d held on toit. Not only was their razor a lot nicer, but Natalie had slipped her phone number inside at some point as well.
    When he was done touching up his shave, he unzipped the garment bag. He had guessed by the weight that there was a pair of shoes inside and sure enough there was. Ashby had thought of everything, right down to a shirt and tie combination he probably wouldn’t have made on his own, but which actually looked pretty nice.
    Exiting the building and walking over to her car, he received an approving whistle. “Don’t you look handsome.”
    “There were plenty of white shirts in my closet, you know.”
    “And they were all boring. You look great,” she said, straightening the knot in his tie. “Don’t let anyone tell you