It was nearly dawn.
Another night had come and gone, and they were all still here, on this stinking airplane.
Bob had fallen asleep in the pilot’s seat, his arms wrapped around his automatic weapon. Al was in the co-pilot’s seat, also dozing, thank God. Gina didn’t think she could stand another minute sitting here with his eyes on her.
She didn’t think she could stand another minute of this, period.
She didn’t understand. Max had all but promised that something would happen. Soon, he’d said.
So where was the cavalry, coming to the rescue? All night long she’d sat here, waiting.
If he’d said a week, she could’ve hung on for another week. But he’d said soon, and she’d been so sure soon meant before another morning dawned.
And now she didn’t think she could bear another day.
“Max,” she whispered through her tears, certain that he could hear her. “They’re sleeping. Do it now, Max.”
Of course he couldn’t answer her.
And she knew from the glimmer of light on the horizon that no one was coming. Not for another day. Somewhere, somehow, she’d find the strength to bear it.
She’d have to bear it.
But the hijackers were sleeping, and even if Max—for whatever reason—wasn’t able to help her right now, maybe she could help him.
She wiped her eyes, wiped her nose on the short sleeve of her shirt.
“Each of the men has an automatic weapon,” she whispered, “but I think some of them don’t have any ammunition. I’ve been watching and it looks like only a few of them have clips attached to their guns—I think that’s what they’re called.”
“Magazines,” Bob said. “They’re called magazines.”
Oh, shit, he was awake.
He sat up. “Who are you talking to?”
“Myself,” Gina said quickly. “I’m just talking to myself. I’m just making mental notes—I’m going to write a book after it’s all over, so ...”
“ ‘Do it now, Max’?” he repeated. The friendly student was gone, and the cold-eyed man who’d threatened to shoot her if Max didn’t go into the terminal was back, and Gina knew with a cold certainty that the game playing was about to come to an end.
She risked everything by reaching up and turning on the radio. Bob had turned it off last night, cutting Max off midsentence, proclaiming himself to be bored. But Bob didn’t shout at her now. He just smiled as he stood up and stretched.
It was not a very nice smile.
“This is flight 232,” Gina said into the microphone, praying for something, anything to interrupt them. “Is there any news? Over?”
Max came instantly back. “Good morning, flight 232, hope you had a pleasant night. We hope to get the details of when Osman Razeen will be arriving very soon. Come back.”
Bob took the microphone from her hand. “We were just talking about you, Max. Although I think I don’t need to talk into this microphone for you to hear me, no? Shall we try?”
He dropped the microphone and raised his gun, firing several bullets into the panel inches from Gina’s head. She shrieked and cowered. “Stop! Stop! Bob, I’m sorry! Please, don’t! Please ...”
She was an instant waterfall of tears and snot, her ears ringing from the noise of the gunshots. Just like that, all the calm dignity she’d been faking for so long dissolved. And she knew. She wasn’t going to die well, with a knowing smile on her lips like Princess Leia facing down Darth Vader. No, she was going to die begging and pleading and sniveling, too scared and desperate even to hate herself for doing it.
“I’m sorry, Bob.” Max’s voice came back completely unperturbed. “I think I missed most of that. Can you repeat? Come back.”
One of the hijackers from the cabin poked his head in. Bob gave a terse order and the man disappeared again, closing the door tightly behind him.
“He’s good, huh? This Max,” Bob said to her in his nearly perfect English. “Let’s see how good.”
He picked up the microphone. “I think our hostage is getting a little tired of us. And we’re getting tired of her, too.”
“That’s easy to fix, Bob. Trade her for me. I’m here. I’m ready. You win millions of goodwill points by letting her walk off the plane. Over.”
“And how many points do we get for dumping her dead body off the plane?”
Sam awoke to the sound of running feet.
Ah, fuck, he’d fallen asleep, right here in the terminal. He’d sent his team back to the hotel after Max Bhagat had gotten into a shouting match with his superiors in Washington. Bhagat had insisted that they send the SEALs in, that it was time to go, but they’d ordered him to drag this thing out for at least another twelve hours. Which would bring them to morning, which meant they’d probably have to wait another twelve hours.
Bhagat had been like a wild man. Starrett had never seen him so upset. He’d actually put his hand through the freaking wall. The timing was right, he kept saying. The hijackers were on the verge of meltdown. They were exhausted, the SEALs were ready. They could do this now and it would all be over by morning. Why did they have him here, if they weren’t going to let him run this operation?
But Washington said that the world was now watching. And the world would think the swift and deadly takedown of flight 232 was retaliation for the hotel massacre. Not that that was a particular problem, but Washington was afraid something would go wrong and more civilians would die as the world watched. Apparently Washington didn’t have the balls to stand behind its own highly trained, highly skilled professionals.
Sam had stuck around, waiting for Bhagat to cool down, hoping to get a chance to talk strategy. When would the timing be right? Tomorrow night? Tomorrow afternoon? He wanted to keep drilling his men, keep ’em fresh, but he didn’t want to wear them out.
He now followed the sound of voices into the negotiators’ room. Lieutenant Paoletti was there, looking like he’d been up all night. God knows he probably had been, dealing with sending O’Leary’s body back home and making arrangements for the wounded to be shipped to a real hospital in a country where they believed in the sterilization of surgical instruments.
“Bob, I need you to talk to me,” Max was saying. “Pick up the radio microphone and talk to me. No one’s dead yet, don’t cross that line. Come on back.”
Jesus, one of the minicameras was picking up the action in the cockpit of the plane. One of the tangos was standing with his weapon aimed right between the girl’s eyes.
“Bob, talk to me, man,” Max said as calmly as if he couldn’t see what was going on. “Come back.”
“But wait,” the tango said. “I better not waste the bullet, right? After all, we don’t have much ammunition.”
On the screen, he shouldered his weapon and turned, saying something to the other tango in the local dialect—something no one but languages expert John Nilsson could’ve understood.
And what do you know? Nils was there. Leaning over Bhagat’s shoulder, murmuring a translation.
Sam didn’t need to hear it to know that the first tango had ordered the second to hurt the girl.
Tango Two took off his weapon, obviously preferring to use his fists on anyone female and under thirty.
This was going to be bad.
Max was talking nonstop, trying to get the first bastard to pick up the radio microphone, and the girl was trying her damnedest not to cry, also talking, but in a voice that shook—“I thought, you know, if we’d met somewhere else that we’d be friends” —and backing away, but she had nowhere to go.
She had nowhere to go, and when Tango Two hit her, when she cried out, her fear and pain rang in the room.
Sam was going to be sick.
Because, oh shit, this guy was going to kill her while they could do nothing but stand here and watch. He hit her again, and Jesus, she must’ve landed on the microphone because the sound went out. The video was still running, and they could hear faint, ghostly cries from the microphones out in the main cabin—picking up the sounds of her pain from a distance. It was surreal.
The position of the camera on the floor made for a hideous angle as she landed right beside it, her lip bloody, one eye swollen.
She lay there stunned as Max continued to talk, broadcasting over the radio. Somehow he kept his voice steady. Sam didn’t know how he did it, how he managed.
Especially when, on the screen, the girl was flipped onto her back. Especially when, on the screen, she began to struggle. The way she was fighting, the intensity, the desperation, meant only one thing. The motherfucker was going to rape her before he killed her. And because Washington had told them to stall, they weren’t ready to go in. And because they weren’t ready, they were going to have to stand here and watch.
Sam threw up. Right there in the fucking wastebasket.
She thrashed so hard, the picture went out. It was impossible to say if she’d just covered it with her hair, or if she’d actually taken out the camera. Either way, they couldn’t see.
They could still hear her, though. Faint crying and pleading. And then, Jesus, just crying.
Max threw his radio against the wall. “Where’s Helga Shuler?” he shouted. “Someone fucking find me Helga Shuler!”
The news wasn’t good. “Cell phones aren’t working. We should have temporary access to landlines in several minutes, sir!”
Max pointed at Lieutenant Paoletti. “I want the SEALs ready to go in. I want them here in five minutes!” He turned around to face his silent staff. “Someone give me a goddamn radio!”
It was there, in his hand, almost instantly.
And as Sam watched, he took a deep breath and blew it out hard, and when he spoke his voice was smooth. Calm. As if he couldn’t hear the sounds of that girl being attacked.
“Bob, let me talk to Karen. Will you please let me talk to Karen?”
Something was ringing.
It took Helga several long moments to realize that it was the telephone.
She groped for it in the darkness next to her bed. Found it.
“Hello?”
“Helga. I need you here.” Whoever it was, he was very upset. “I’m ready to give the order to go in,” he said, “fuck Washington, and I’m not sure I’m making an impartial decision. I need your help.”
She felt for the light. Switched it on.
And found herself surrounded by a yellow sea of Post-it notes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, putting on her glasses and trying to read as many of them as she could. You are in Kazbekistan. An airplane has been hijacked. Stanley Wolchonok is Marte Gunvald’s son. “Who is this? Stanley?”
“What? No. It’s me. It’s Max. Wake up, for Christ’s sake! I need all synapses firing.”
Max. There was no Max anywhere, on any of the sticky notes.
He was talking to her as if she surely knew what he was saying, as if she could give him the answers he needed. “They’ve beaten the crap out of Gina,” he told her from between clenched teeth. “They raped her, too. We could hear—” His voice broke. “Jesus, we could hear them. They knew we could hear them, the bastards. They know we’ve got the plane miked.”
Dear God, no wonder he was upset. “Breathe,” she told him. “Just breathe, dear, and give me a minute here.”
She didn’t know who this Gina was—not that it mattered, precisely. And she was still trying to identify Max. Did he work for her? Or did she work for him?
A notepad lay on the bedside table, and she flipped through it.
“Helga, I don’t have a minute.” Max’s voice was strained. “These phone lines are unreliable. I’m lucky I got through to you at all. I want to give the order to go, but I can’t step back from this. I don’t know if I just want to save this girl, the hell with the other hundred and twenty passengers, the hell with the politics, the hell with the fact that after this, the hijackers are going to be ready and waiting for us to respond with force, and that puts the lives of my SEAL team at risk.”
FBI negotiator Max Bhagat, Helga read, and the last name stirred her frozen memory.
“I’m calling on you as a friend,” he said to her now. “This is not official, you know that.”
She’d first met Max nearly fifteen years ago. He’d been impossibly young, incredibly cocky. One of those young men who was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was always right. She could remember the situation in which they’d met with a clarity that was astonishing. A Palestinian man had taken hostage a busload of Americans touring Jerusalem.
And Max had talked the man off the bus.
Try as she might, she couldn’t remember more than the vaguest specifics of the current situation. Something about an American senator’s daughter. But the girl’s name was Karen, her notes said. Helga didn’t know who this Gina was.
She didn’t know even half enough to help Max now.
“I’m sorry,” Helga told him, ashamed that it should have come to this. How dare she put herself in a position where others had to rely on her? She had completely blown it. She had let down a friend—by pretending she was okay, when she so obviously was not. Perhaps she could hide the truth from other people, but she couldn’t hide it from herself. At least not anymore. “I can’t help you.” She closed her eyes. “I’m ill. I’ll call Desmond, though. Maybe he—”
The phone line was dead.
Helga jiggled the button. Got a dial tone. She pushed zero.
The hotel operator greeted her in the local language.
“This is Helga Shuler,” she said. “Can you reconnect me to the party to whom I was just speaking?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. All outside lines have just gone down.”
Merde. “Connect me to Desmond Nyland’s room, please.”
There was a click and then a buzzing.
Des picked it up on the first ring. “Nyland.”
“Des, I’m so sorry, did I wake you?”
He just laughed. “Not a chance. I just got in. Are you all right? Are you awake? This is good timing actually. I have something urgent I need to talk to you about.”
“I have something I need to tell you first,” she said, closing her eyes. And then she said it. Aloud. “I have what I think is Alzheimer’s. I think I’ve had it for a while—of course, I’m not certain—it’s like that bad joke. I don’t remember. But I do know that I can no longer do my job. I’ll be faxing my resignation in the morning.” She opened her notebook to a fresh page. “And I’m writing this down—that I’ve told you all this. I’m sure I’ll need to be reminded.”
Des laughed softly. “Lady, I’m going to miss you. But we’re not done working together yet. I think you’re going to be able to help me with one last thing. It’s important. Are you dressed?”
“No.”
“Get dressed—I’m coming over.”
“It’s time, Senior,” Jenk said over the radio. “Come back.”
“Holy shit,” Stan said, checking the clock, surprised that it was morning. He’d fallen asleep facedown in Teri’s bed, and here he still was, as if he hadn’t moved an inch all night long.
Except he had. He definitely had. He distinctly remembered Teri waking him up in the middle of the night with a kiss and ...
Yeah, he’d definitely come alive for that.
He pushed himself up and off the bed. “I expected to get called hours ago. What the fuck happened? Over.” He winced as he looked at Teri. “Excuse me.”
She sat up, and the sheet fell away from her as she stretched. Dear God. He was definitely not used to the sight of her naked. He suspected he never would be. She got out of bed, and he watched her walk across the room to the dresser, unable to look away.
“L.T. said whoever woke you before the last possible second was going to get their ass kicked, come on.”
Man, he’d been trying to pretend that he hadn’t woken up aroused, but the male anatomy being what it was, it was going to be hard for her to miss.
“Do we have food and water? Coffee?” Stan asked as he tried to focus his attention on his search for his briefs. “Do we even have a pilot? Over?”
“It’s all taken care of, Senior. Just get to the roof, ASAP, come back.”
“Yeah, who’s our pilot, over?” Found ’em. Two more seconds and he would’ve given up and just pulled on his pants.
“Green, come back.”
Teri was getting clean clothes from where she’d actually unpacked them into the hotel dresser drawers, and she turned to look at him in almost comically outrageous dismay.
“Where’s Teri Howe assigned? Do you know, over?” Stan asked, slipping into his briefs and stepping into his pants.
There was a pause while Jenk searched through the paperwork.
“I wanted this assignment,” Teri said. “After all this, to not even be there, at the airport, with you ... ?”
“I’m sorry,” Stan said as he pulled on his T-shirt. “But maybe it’s just as well—”
“Howe’s been assigned to standby at the hotel,” Jenk came back.
“Thanks, Jenkins,” Stan said. “Over and out.”
He went into the bathroom to take a leak, and Teri followed him right in.
“You’re happy about this,” she said as she quickly brushed her teeth, watching him in the mirror. “Aren’t you?”
He couldn’t lie to her. “With the increased security, you’re probably safest right here,” he said as he zipped his pants, flushed, and went to the other sink. He splashed water on his face. “So, yes, I am.”
“You said I was the best pilot you know,” Teri countered as she handed him a towel and then the still soapy toothbrush.
“You are.” This was ... unique. While he’d had one or two relationships where he’d spent the entire night, he’d never shared bathroom time with a woman before. And he’d never shared a toothbrush. But why the hell not? He’d had his tongue in her mouth last night.
“The reason you don’t want me to do my job is ... ?”
“You are doing your job,” he told her as he rinsed his mouth and dried his face. “Someone’s got to be here— Look, I’ve got to go.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said, following him to the door. “I’m going to see if Green’s willing to switch.”
He stopped her. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t get it. Christ, even after yesterday, she still didn’t get it.
“You leave this room,” he said sternly, “you wear your flack jacket.”
She nodded. Grabbed it from the floor. And looked him dead in the eye. “Where’s your flack jacket, Stan?”
He laughed. None of the SEALs wore jackets. There was no way they could maneuver and move quickly with all that extra weight. Forget about the fact that by noon it would be close to 120 degrees in the shade.
But Teri was serious, and laughing was a mistake. She caught his arm. “What is this?” she said. “That we’ve got going here? Is it just sex or is it something more?”
“Whoa,” he said. “Teri, I’m late. Don’t do this right now. Please. Just wear your flack jacket and stay safe.” He kissed her—it was like kissing a two-by-four. Great. He started for the stairs. “I’ll see you later.”
The pounding on her door was so persistent, Alyssa was sure it had to be Sam Starrett.
She’d been certain he’d show up sooner or later, but frankly, she’d expected him more on the sooner side. And at nearly 0500, it was definitely later.
She crawled out of bed and opened the door without bothering to find her robe. “If you think I’m just going to let you into my room without so much as a ...”
She found herself staring at the empty space where Sam Starrett’s head should have been.
“Sorry, ma’am.” She shifted her gaze down about eight inches and found Mark Jenkins’s apologetic face. “But it’s urgent. L.T. needs to talk to you, and cell phones are out. There were four different terrorist attacks to satellite receivers last night. Landlines are down, and even if they weren’t, the hotel lines are not secure.”
He held out a radio.
She took it, aware she was standing there in only an extra large T-shirt and her underpants. Jenkins politely looked the other direction as she thumbed the mike. “Locke.”
“Alyssa, it’s Tom Paoletti. You know O’Leary was killed yesterday. Over.”
“Yes, sir. I was very sorry to hear it. Over.”
“I need a second shooter for this takedown, and I want it to be you.”
Alyssa nearly dropped the radio.
“I know it’s highly irregular,” Paoletti continued. “You’re supposed to be observing, but I want you in place with Wayne Jefferson as our second sniper. We’ve got other marksmen in the team, but no one even comes close to your level of skill—hell, O’Leary wasn’t as good as you. It’s absurd to use anyone else if you’re available. I’ve cleared it with Max Bhagat. Will you do it? Over.”
“What’s Sam Starrett have to say?” she asked. “Over.”
“He generally says Aye aye, sir, when I give him an order,” Paoletti came back. “I haven’t spoken to him yet. But if he gives you trouble of any kind, tell him to come see me. Over.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Alyssa said, wondering if Tom had any clue at all about the kind of trouble Sam Starrett had been giving her lately. “Count me in.”
Stan made it all the way to the stairwell door before Teri ran after him.
“No,” she said as she followed him up the stairs. “No, Stan, I’m not going to wave good-bye and hope you come back in one piece so that I can then tiptoe around the fact that there’s far more going on here than you and me having a good time in bed. You’re the one who’s always telling me to confront people when they piss me off, to get aggressive, to fight back, and god damn it, you just really pissed me off!
“Yes, you’re older than me, yes, you’re more experienced than me in a lot of ways, there’s a lot you can teach me, I’ll give you that, but I don’t want you to be my teacher or my mentor or—” She shook her head, wishing he would slow down, but knowing that his haste to get to the roof was as much to make her stop talking as it was to reach the helos and the rest of the team.
“When we made love last night, that was just me and you, without any other garbage. It was about ...” Love. Teri wanted to say it, but she couldn’t get the word out. “We were equal partners. Fifty-fifty. It wasn’t about you telling me to be a good girl and wear my freaking flack jacket. If you want me to wear my flack jacket, if you care about me enough to want me to wear it, then dammit, don’t laugh at me when I care about you and ask where yours is.”
Stan stopped her. One flight from the roof. “Teri, please, you’re turning this into something bigger than it is. I’m telling you to wear your flack jacket because it saved your life yesterday. This is not an unreasonable request. It doesn’t have anything to do with ... with any of this other ... bullshit.”
She stared at him. “This is bullshit?”
“Oh, Christ,” he said. “Teri, look, I hear what you’re saying, I don’t necessarily agree with it. I’m glad you’re telling me that you’re angry, I’m not so glad it’s right this second. Your timing needs a little work.”
“When is the right time to get angry?” she asked hotly. “If you want me to do it when it’s convenient for you, then maybe you should stop being such a jerk.”
He laughed as he took the stairs up two at a time. “God save me from estrogen-induced insanity.”
She followed him up the stairs. The entire team was up there. Trying their damnedest not to listen—or maybe trying to listen, she didn’t care either way.
“Who’s not here yet?” Stan asked.
“Cosmo and Lopez,” someone volunteered. “They’re coming.”
“That was a really assholeish thing to say,” Teri lit into Stan, catching his arm and scrambling so that she was in front of him, blocking him. “God save me from testosterone-induced assholeishness! I love you, god damn it!” With all the words she’d stumbled over while chasing him in the stairwell, that’s what she should have said. “I want you and I’m coming after you. I’m not going to let you get away from me. You better get some furniture for that house of yours, because I’m coming over!”
Oh, God. Everyone was looking at her. Sam Starrett. Mike Muldoon. WildCard and Jenk. “That okay with you?” she asked Jenk.
He nodded quickly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Teri nodded, too. “Good. Well.” She glanced at Muldoon. “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “I think I pretty much knew.”
She looked at Stan again, but he was looking away. Over toward the helo, as if he wished he were on board and flying away from her forever. Oh, God, what had she just done?
And there, in front of her, was helo pilot Walt Green. “Walt, I don’t suppose I can talk you into switching—”
“Not a chance, Teri.”
“Right. So. My day’s going particularly well.” She looked at Stan again, and this time he was at least looking back at her. But for the life of her, she couldn’t read the expression on his face. God, she loved his face. “Good luck.”
She turned and would have walked away with dignity, her head held high—at least until she made it back to her room.
“Lieutenant.”
She stopped walking and turned around, resigned to facing the formality in his voice.
“I apologize for being an asshole,” Stan said.
It was one of the last things she’d expected him to say. “I apologize, too,” she whispered. “For embarrassing you like this.”
“Do I look embarrassed?” He laughed. “A little overwhelmed maybe, but I’m sorry, the most beautiful, smartest, sweetest woman that I’ve ever met announces that she wants me? You’ve just cemented my reputation for being able to do anything. If you want to embarrass me, Lieutenant, you’re going to have to do better than that.”
She nodded, relief surging through her. “I’ll try harder next time.”
He smiled. “Good.”
Lopez and Cosmo came bounding up the stairs, and Stan turned away, busy then being the senior chief, loading the team on board the helo. He was the last man on, and as he turned to look at her, she hugged herself, arms across her chest, determined not to stand there and wave good-bye while he went to save the world.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. “Keep your flack jacket on.”
And it occurred to her in a flash of realization that when he said that, maybe it wasn’t because he wanted to boss her around, to keep the distancing effects of age and experience prominent in their relationship. When he said that, maybe it was his way of telling her just how desperately he cared.
Teri waved.