Free Tangled Pursuit by Lindsay McKenna

other logistics, plus KNR duties. I think that’s a bit much for one person to handle, don’t you?”
    Tal studied the other email. “Yes. It’s way too much for one person.” She looked up at Alexa. “And the Safe House Foundation might be too much for you, too.”
    “Well, like Uncle Ihsan said, we can always hire good people to take over if we need them. I think at this stage Dad and our uncles want to identify what we’re comfortable handling and what we’re not willing to take on.”
    “It’s all part of the shakedown cruise,” Tal agreed. She bit into her buttered toast as she continued to read the long, detailed email.
    “They’ve identified several career slots: mission planning, finances, travel, human resources, and probably logistics. We’ll need black ops men and women for nearly all these departments.”
    “Yes, and a really good CPA for accounting, and a smart travel assistant to book the mission teams on commercial flights when needed, too,” Tal agreed. There was already a provision in Artemis that they would have their own private fleet of jets and transports. Sometimes, going in black ops meant not traveling commercially, and the Artemis fleet was going to be very necessary insofar as Tal was concerned. Delos had a fleet of aircraft, smaller jets as well as much larger transport planes. They carried the red and yellow rising sun logo on their tail. The Artemis fleet would be nondescript, carry no logo, and blend in so that possible enemies in a given foreign country could not identify the planes.
    Alexa’s eyes shone. “This is so exciting, isn’t it, putting this all together! Who knew that someday we’d have our own security firm, Tal?”
    “It wasn’t on my radar, either. I was planning on spending twenty in the Marine Corps and getting out with a pension,” confided Tal.
    “The attack on La Fortuna in Costa Rica has changed our whole family’s priorities. I’m just sick that two teachers from the Home School charity were murdered by that drug dealer Medina.”
    “The world has degraded into terrorism,” Tal said sadly. “And now it’s worldwide, and no one anywhere is safe or immune from it. Not even the Delos charities.”
    Shaking her head, Alexa muttered, “It infuriates me to see our teachers attacked and killed. I mean, five years ago, no one touched our charities! Everything was fine. No one was breaking in and stealing medicine or money from the office, or worse, stealing equipment to sell elsewhere.”
    Tal nodded. “It’s a whole new world, Alexa, and it hasn’t gotten better. That’s why getting a security company in place now is a very timely move.”
    Alexa said, “What I worry about is in what direction this terrorism is escalating. We have charities on every continent except Antarctica. We’ve already had one volunteer in Africa captured and held for ransom, which Delos paid. At another location of ours in Nicaragua, two of our local women volunteers were raped by local soldiers. Our people are innocent, and they know not to mix with local politics in any way. It really alarmed me when this started happening. Although we pay our volunteers, they’re performing a humanitarian service that should exclude them from being shot at, kidnapped, raped, or murdered.”
    Grimly, Tal looked over at Alexa. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. Life isn’t a bed of roses, Alexa. It’s more like a quilt of thorns.”
    “I know, I know,” her sister sighed. “It’s just that charities like the Red Cross used to be respected by everyone, even the bad guys. And now there are no limits.”
    “Not anymore.”
    “Sometimes your logic and reality are such downers, Tal,” Alexa said sadly.
    “I know. Sometimes I wish we were kids again on summer vacation in Kuşadası.”
    “Oh, yes,” Alexa sighed, closing her eyes and letting the memories come flooding back. “I loved our six weeks there with the Turkish side of our family! I loved the yachting, the