The vibration of the helicopter was a constant, low-frequency tremor that settled deep in my teeth. We were a dark shadow racing low over the Aegean, thirty minutes out from Paros. The island, visible now as a rising smudge of gray against the twilight horizon, was already crawling with the dark figures of my surgical team and the relentless rage of the Romano triplets.

I sat in the troop cabin, surrounded by monitors showing four distinct feeds: the thermal overlay of the Paros estate, the GPS ...