Just Another Noel

They say Christmas is a time for miracles.
They’re half right.
It’s a time for ghosts. For the things you buried in the shallow graves of the past to claw their way back to the surface, dressed in tinsel and smelling of pine. It’s a season of sharp contrasts: the glittering star over the stable, and the red smear on the fresh-fallen snow.
A United States Senator vanishes from a fortress of money and power, leaving behind nothing but an open door and the scent of fear. The news screams of foreign terrorists, of political intrigue. They swing at shadows, these men in suits, because the truth is too simple, and just too cold.
The truth is a man.
A man like me.
My name is Cain Taggert. I’m the problem you call when all your other solutions have bled out on the floor. I’m the last prayer whispered in the dead of night, the answer that comes with the sound of a hammer falling.
And this story?
It starts with a missing politician and a trail of blood that leads from the manicured lawns of Atlanta to the hell-hot bars of Nicaragua. It’s about powerful men who play chess with human lives, and the pawn who decided to break the board.
They wanted a silent night.
I was the noel they never saw coming!