OTEL ELBE HOF, HAMBURG, GERMANY

JUNE 21, 2005

PRESENT DAY

As Max downloaded the photos from Gina’s camera onto the computer he’d appropriated from the hotel’s business center, he cursed himself for the fortieth time in the past half hour for not bringing along his own familiar laptop.

The knock at the door came just at the perfect moment—right before he popped a vein, ground his teeth into shards, and flung the fucking hard drive through the window.

“You made good time,” he told Jules curtly as he opened the door and—

“Hey, Max.”

The world went into super-slow-mo.

For about half a lifetime, Max stood stone still and stared into the eyes of Grady Morant, aka Dave Jones, aka the motherfucker who, along with Max, was responsible for Gina’s disappearance.

The part of him that had been an FBI agent for two decades went into autopilot, rapidly taking note of important information.

Hands—up and empty, intentionally placed where Max could see them.

Bulge, under jacket’s left arm—possible large wallet, probable side-arm.

“Hey, Max”—Morant expected him to open this door, knew he’d be here.

Taller, bigger—he had at least twenty-five pounds on Max.

Special Forces—he’d been trained in some serious hand-to-hand.

Back in 1990-something. Lotta years since Morant had been in the Army. Lotta years to lose his edge, get out of shape, go soft.

Motherfucker didn’t look soft.

His doctor’s gentle voice—“Looking good, Max. Collarbone’s healed nicely. Just... try to take it easy for awhile.”

The part of Max that was a fucking madman lunatic didn’t wait to sort through the rapid-fire information and come to the conclusion that reaching beneath his own jacket to pull out his weapon and usher Morant into the hotel room at gunpoint to question him on Gina’s whereabouts was the smart move.

The part of him that was a fucking madman lunatic was swallowed up by the chaos, by the fury and the fear and the bitter frustration.

That heartstopping memory of Gina’s name—in harsh black and white on an official list of the dead.

That body, beneath a shroud—with a face that wasn’t hers.

A freefall of shock, as rage and grief still swirled and danced, parrying now with hope, the tiniest speck of which had already begun to unravel him.

Max must’ve grabbed Morant and pulled him into the room. The door must’ve swung shut behind them, but Max didn’t hear it close.

He just knew that Morant crashed over the chair and smashed into the wall next to the window.

Max was right behind him, a pistol in his hand—an unfamiliar Astra that he must’ve somehow taken from Morant. He threw it across the room, then heaved the chair out of the way.

Morant pushed himself to his feet, saying something that Max couldn’t hear over the thunderous storm inside his head.

“Where’s Gina?” Max roared over it. “You fucking better tell me where Gina is or I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll rip you to pieces, right fucking now, you son of a bitch!”

Morant tried to escape around the breakfast table, but Max grabbed him, tripped him, and together they went down, taking out a lamp that broke with a crash.

His head hit the frame of the bed, hard, but the dancing lights that temporarily blinded him didn’t even start to slow him down. He was going for Morant’s throat whether he could see it or not, grabbing handfuls of his belt, his shirt, his hair.

“I said, I don’t know where she—Ow, Jesus!”

A fist to Max’s face didn’t do the fucker a bit of good—no velocity. But then he tasted blood. Maybe he’d just gone past pain as Morant again tried to scramble free.

An elbow caught Max in the side, taking his air with a sharp stab, but he still didn’t back off.

Morant thought he’d bought himself a second or two of time—his mistake. He moved onto his hands and knees to get away and put himself right where Max wanted him—into a chokehold, Max’s arm around his throat, his knee pressing into his back, grinding into his spine.

“Are you out of your mind?” Morant spat out before Max tightened his grip, keeping him from getting the air he needed to speak.

The air he needed to breathe.

Morant, of course, was too well trained to just lie there and die. He rolled, onto his back, onto Max, trying to break the smaller man’s grip. He shoved himself, hard, against the wall, repeatedly trying to crush Max with his body weight, trying at least to loosen his death grip.

And it was a death grip.

Max wanted to kill Morant.

Max was killing Morant.

The man clawed at Max’s arm, trying desperately to reach Max’s face, his eyes, all to no avail. He struggled then, squirming like a beached fish—until Max realized he was reaching into his pocket, reaching for something.

Not a knife, not a gun—a pen. Cheap plastic, with a point that clicked out.

A well-trained man could kill with a pen—or at least wound, and Max tucked his face into Morant’s broad back and braced himself for another attack.

Max Bhagat had clearly snapped. Jones had seen it before—in training for Special Forces as well as in Chai’s employ—with men who’d been pushed too hard, too far.

He’d even experienced it himself, in prison.

Torture—a tongue-loosening tactic that was apparently now in Ameri-ca’s arsenal—could do that to a man.

Sanity vanished and instinct ruled. Decisions were made, choices taken that had little to do with personal beliefs, with long-held perceptions of right or wrong.

It was pretty damn obvious that Max either was unable to listen or had retreated to some dark place where he couldn’t hear Jones’s gasped explanations: “I don’t know where Gina is, but I know she’s with Molly, and they’re both still alive.”

Or “Hey, shit-for-brains! We’re on the same side!”

And then, as Max’s grip tightened on his throat, Jones could no longer speak. He could no longer breathe.

What the fuck...?

The possibility that he was going to die in the very near future was highly likely.

It just seemed unbelievable that it would happen right here. Right now.

Like this.

He wasn’t ready.

He thought of Molly, and he fought harder, but light sparked and black patches popped, messing up his vision, and he knew he was going down.

Without telling Max what he needed to know.

Goddamn it. He dug for the pen he was carrying in his pants, cursing himself for taking care to follow the rules—to never write anything down. Never leave a paper trail. When Max went through his pockets, he’d find nothing.

He clicked the pen—his husband pen—thanking God that he had it with him. He’d started carrying it to keep from having to run back to their tent or the hospital office whenever Molly turned to him and asked, “Do you have a pen?”

Jesus—the wall was too far away to write on.

His hand spasmed and he dropped it. Groped for it, got it.

And then he pushed back his sleeve and he wrote, for the last few seconds of his life, directly on his other arm, right until the world faded for the very last time, and went permanently black.

SHEFFIELD PHYSICAL REHAB CENTER, MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

JANUARY 28, 2004

SEVENTEEN MONTHS AGO

Jules followed Gina into the building, carrying Max’s guitar.

Well, okay. It wasn’t Max’s yet, but Jules liked calling it that. It was just so totally un-Max-ish. Kind of similar to the outlandishly out-of-character plaid PJ pants and Snoopy T-shirt Jules had seen his boss wearing late one night, some months ago.

Gina had been involved in that surprise-fest, too.

Today, Nurse Horrible was over at the reception desk, and Saint Gina greeted her cheerfully despite their ongoing feud, waving those comic books she’d brought. “Hi, Debra. Where’s Ajay hiding? I found the latest X-Men.”

Jules didn’t hear Deb’s reply as he held the door for a pair of what had to be professional hockey players, visiting their recuperating teammate.

And, whoa, the cute blond one actually held Jules’s gaze as he thanked him. Wasn’t that interesting. Of course, the boy was barely twenty, so maybe he was just some naÏve Canadian and... Nope. Jules got a bonafide over-the-shoulder second glance and a pretty obvious once-over from the sports twinkie—with more eye contact that ended in an actual wink.

So okay. Wow. He was going to have to start watching hockey.

The sound of breaking glass made Jules turn away from the scenery in the parking lot. Oops. Gina had dropped the flowers she’d brought for old Mrs. Klinger. The mayonnaise jar she was using to transport them had shattered on the tile floor.

The comic books had gone flying, too, and at first Jules thought she’d dropped to her knees to pick them up, but as he hurried toward her, Debra came out from behind the counter and...

The two women clung to each other...?

Oh, dear Jesus... Jules broke into a run as he saw that Gina was in tears, and he heard her ask, “Does Max know?”

Which was good, because it meant that it wasn’t Max who had dropped dead. Instead, it was someone else, only now Deb was crying, too, and with heartsickening certainty, Jules knew that could mean only one thing. These two women who so totally disliked each other had something in common...

“Max found him,” Deb told Gina.

“Oh, God, no,” Gina wept.

“Found who?” Jules asked, crouching down next to them, even though he already knew.

Ajay. They’d both adored Ajay.

“But he was doing so well,” Gina said, as if a good, solid argument as to why he shouldn’t have died could bring the boy back to life.

“Was it kidney failure?” Jules asked.

Deb shook her head as she wiped her eyes. “Infection. It ripped through his immune system. He complained of a sore throat at dinner, so I took his temperature. It wasn’t more than a little bit higher than normal. None of us thought... But by the time Max found him, just a few hours later, he was burning up. We rushed him to the hospital, where he died in the ER around midnight. His poor little heart just gave up the fight.”

Now they were all crying.

“Poor Max,” Gina said. “He must be devastated.” She began pushing herself up. “I better find him. I can’t believe he didn’t call me.”

Jules could believe it. Max may have been devastated, but he’d never let anyone know. Not even Gina. Maybe especially not Gina. He helped Deb to her feet, too.

“This must’ve happened right after I called last night,” Gina realized.

“No, no, hon,” Debra said. “This wasn’t last night. It was the night before.”

Oh, crap.

Gina didn’t believe it at first. Jules could see her struggling to make sense of this information. “Are you sure? I spoke to Max yesterday and...”

Jules knew what she was thinking: And he hadn’t said a word about it.

Ajay had died and Max hadn’t even bothered to tell her.

Gina abruptly turned and headed toward Max’s room.

“Oh, dear.” Deb gestured toward the broken glass on the floor. “I’ll take care of this mess,” she told Jules. “You go try to handle that one.”

Good verb choice—try. Jules grabbed Max’s guitar and ran after Gina. “Sweetie, maybe you should slow down, count to ten—”

“Why? So I don’t say something I’m going to regret? Don’t worry, I’ve got it down to three perfect, regret-proof words: Go fuck yourself. Maybe I’ll add a fourth: Max.”

“Gina—”

“I actually thought he needed me,” she said. “Wow, did I ever get that wrong!”

Max’s door was closed, but Gina just went on in without even knocking.

He was on the phone, standing and looking out of the window, but he turned. Maybe it was the fire shooting out of Gina’s ears, but he knew that telling her to hold on a sec wasn’t going to cut it. “I’m going to have to call you back,” he said into his phone and snapped it shut.

Max was a master negotiator, but it was going to take a miracle to talk his way out of this one.

Jules stood in the hall. He knew he should turn around, walk away, but he couldn’t. It was like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion.

“Didn’t you think,” Gina said, “that Ajay’s dying just might be something that I’d want to know?”

Max got very still. “I thought...” He shook his head. “You weren’t feeling well,” he said.

“I wasn’t feeling well at 5:25 P.M.,” she lit into him. “A solid, what, sixteen hours after Ajay died?” She started to cry. “Jesus, Max! You couldn’t pick up the phone before that?”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say?

“What, were you too busy?” she asked him. “Like, oh, well. Shit happens. Little boys die every day, what’s the big deal about one more?”

It was so obvious to Jules that Max felt awful. That he was devastated. That he hadn’t known how to tell her, that he didn’t know what to say right now, that he was unable to find any words at all to express his pain.

Or maybe that was just what Jules wanted to see. Instead of this silent, expressionless, emotional void of a man.

“What is wrong with you?” Gina whispered.

Her words seemed to hang, like the dust in the sunlight streaming in through the window, as they all stood in silence.

Until Max’s phone started ringing.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice tight. “I told you often enough—I can’t give you what you want.”

“I guess not,” Gina said. “But thanks so much for trying—oh. Wait. You didn’t try.” She turned to Jules, still standing there like an idiot in the hall. “I’m going to get a cab back to your place.”

“Jules can drive you,” Max said, as his phone just kept ringing and ringing.

“I know you have business to discuss,” Gina said stiffly.

“It can wait,” Max said.

“Whatever,” Gina said, and left the room.

Jules was holding that guitar. “You want me to—”

“Leave it,” she said as she walked away.

Jules went into the room as his boss answered the phone.

“Bhagat,” Max said. “Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

He had to know that Gina wasn’t coming back.

Didn’t he care that she hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye?

Jules’s stomach hurt for both of them as he set the guitar down in the corner. What a waste.

Max opened his eyes, saw Jules was still standing there, and waved him away, mouthing, Go, from between clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry for your loss, sir,” Jules said, but he wasn’t even sure that Max heard him.

HOTEL ELBE HOF, HAMBURG, GERMANY

JUNE 21, 2005

PRESENT DAY

There was no doubt about it, good FBI agent/crazy FBI agent didn’t work so well when there wasn’t a good FBI agent in the room.

Not to mention the fact that the insanity was supposed to be part of an act.

As Grady Morant went limp, reality slapped Max in the face with two hard facts: One, the son of a bitch hadn’t tried to jab him with that pen, and two, if he was dead, he couldn’t help Max find Gina.

Correction. If Morant stayed dead, he couldn’t help find Gina.

Carefully, in case the limpness was feigned, Max let go of the bastard and...

The good news was that Max didn’t have to fight off an attempt by Morant to put that pen in his eye.

The bad news was that he had absolutely no idea how much time had passed since he’d grabbed Morant in that chokehold—or how long it had been since oxygen had last reached the man’s brain.

Max rolled the body onto its back, lifted the chin, checked for obstructions in the airway—yeah, right, whoops, that was unnecessary. He’d been the cause of the obstruction in the bastard’s airway.

He breathed into Morant’s mouth—come on, come on—quickly tossing the pen out of reach, searching for any other weapons he might’ve missed during their fight, checking for a pulse on a wrist that had blue ink on it. What the...? Instead of stabbing Max with that pen, Morant had started to write a novel. On his freaking arm.

The words Gina and alive stood out—ah, Christ!—but there was no pulse there, goddamn it. He tried the pulse point in Morant’s throat as he breathed for the son of a bitch. If it was back there, it was flipping faint, and whatever he felt may have been just his own wishful thinking.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Max leaned on Morant’s chest, training kicking in as he automatically pressed, breathed, pressed, getting into the rhythm.

Come on, come on, please God, come on...

He was on the verge of sticking his fingers down the bastard’s throat, to try to see if he’d damaged something in their struggle. If Morant’s throat had swollen, if air couldn’t get through...

But then he got a pulse—yes!—right as Morant coughed up a spray of spit and blood and God knows what directly into Max’s face.

At least it wasn’t vomit.

With shaking hands—that had been too damn close—Max wiped his face as he nudged Morant onto his side, letting him gasp and wheeze and cough up the rest of the smoke and embers and poisonous slime of hell that had slipped down into his lungs during those long moments that he’d been dead.

Max leaned back against the wall, and tried to steady his own breathing. His nose was bleeding—not too badly. Just enough to be annoying.

“Do you need a hospital?” he finally asked. Sometimes the throat tissue got so badly bruised that medical attention was necessary. Sometimes it wasn’t enough merely to stop strangling someone and then bring them back to life.

Not that he was in the habit of throttling people. He had, however, studied anatomy. He was very familiar with all of the various kill points—and the throat was particularly vulnerable.

But Morant shook his head. “No.” It was little more than a whisper, but he left no room for doubt. As Max watched, he rolled onto his back, eyes closed, as he just breathed.

His clothes weren’t as badly torn as Max’s.

One sleeve of Max’s suit jacket was completely down around his wrist. And he’d ripped out the back seam. He could feel cool air against the sweat that drenched his shirt.

Morant, however, looked pretty damn good for a man who’d just returned from the dead, for a man who’d allegedly died months ago, for a man wanted by too many different governments on too many different charges to count.

His clothes weren’t expensive—typical relief worker gear—and thus were harder to destroy in a brawl. Cargo pants, boots, denim shirt, denim jacket.

The man himself looked like Africa agreed with him. Healthy. Trim.

Max nudged Morant’s hand with his foot, so he could read what was written on his arm.

It looked like an e-mail address—RoyallyEffed@freemail.com. Then the letters P and W, and what looked like... chair?

Gina + Molly alive then SAVE THEM—underlined three times. Then something that looked like trace... the... form-squiggle. It was impossible to read.

The rest, too, was illegible, but Max didn’t need to see more to know that he’d come goddamn close to killing an innocent man.

A man who’d used what he thought were his last moments of life to try to get Max the information he would need to save Gina and Molly.

It was humbling.

“I’m really sorry,” Max said. It seemed like such an inadequate thing to say. Sorry I tried to kill you? It wasn’t even honest. He hadn’t merely tried, he’d succeeded.

Morant turned his head to look at Max. “Smells like her in here,” he whispered. “My wife.”

His...? Max took a deep breath. Remembering to breathe was good.

“Bet you never thought I’d use those two words one after the other like that,” Morant continued. He coughed again. Tried to clear his throat. “Never thought I would either.”

“Molly?” Max asked.

“Yeah, Molly,” Morant said with a look of incredulity. He was hoarse—he would be for a while. “Who’d you think I meant? Gina?”

Max blotted his nose on his ruined sleeve. “I’ve been having a particu-larly bad day.” Gina finally finding happiness with a dangerous, wanted criminal would’ve fit the running pattern. Although day wasn’t quite accurate. Bad year was more appropriate.

“She always said how brilliant you were,” Morant said. “A total prick, but brilliant. Don’t prove her wrong.”

Was prick her word or Morant’s? And wasn’t that the last question he should be asking. “Where are they?” Max asked instead. “Who has them—Leslie Pollard? Did you ask for proof of life?”

“Indonesia,” Morant said. “All I have for the man who grabbed them is an initial—E.—and a description. Don’t get excited. It’s just this side of useless. He’s medium height, medium build, medium complexion, dark hair, mustache, speaks the Queen’s English with an accent, possibly French. Unless maybe he’s a friend of yours...?”

Max shook his head. Although with that description, this could have been anyone. It could’ve been Max, with fake facial hair, doing his Inspector Clouseau impression.

“Didn’t think so,” Morant continued. “What I do know is he’s not Leslie Pollard because I buried him—what was left of him—in Thailand. And thanks to the indigenous fauna, there wasn’t that much left by the time I found him.” His smile was grim. “I figured he didn’t need his name anymore. His passport, sadly, was chewed into unsalvageable bits.”

So Grady Morant, aka Dave Jones, was also Leslie Pollard—who was married to Molly Anderson. Or so he claimed.

The pieces of the puzzle that were still missing had to do with Gina. Her letter to Jules—I have met the most fascinating man!

“Did you know Gina’s pregnant?” Max asked Morant.

He got a flash of total surprise in response. Surprise and something else. Max wasn’t exactly sure what else, but the surprise was real. No one was that good an actor. “Gina?”

“So the baby’s not yours,” Max said.

“Hell, no.” Morant laughed, but then stopped. “Jesus, was that why you tried to kill me?”

“Was she seeing anyone?” Max asked. “This E., maybe?”

“No.” Morant was certain. “He showed up at the camp—at least I’m assuming he’s the same man who e-mailed me—but it wasn’t until after Molly and Gina left for Germany. He flew in, in a rented helicopter, spoke to Sister Helen—who told me she’d never seen him before. She was the one who gave me the description—I only saw him from a distance. He walks like an operator, by the way.”

Terrific. “Did Gina leave the camp?” Max asked. “On weekends or... I don’t know, her days off?” It was possible she’d met this E., whoever he was, in Nairobi.

“Nah,” Morant said. “I mean, she and Molly went into Nairobi only once the entire time I was at the camp. As far as days off... She never stopped working. She also never talked about anyone else—a boyfriend or lover or... But I was only at the camp for about four months, so...”

So it was possible the relationship had already ended.

Did she ever talk about Max? Besides, of course, calling him a brilliant prick.

The question was not relevant to this investigation. But she must have—how else would Morant have known he’d be here, in Hamburg, searching for her?

“What about Molly?” Max asked instead. “Did she ever leave the camp without you? Was it possible she might’ve hooked up with—”

“No.” Morant bristled. “And fuck you for suggesting it.”

It was standard in an investigation to raise questions about whether the abductees were familiar with the abductor. It was easier, from a kidnapping standpoint to befriend the victims and have them willingly get into the car. If this guy had been hanging around—not at the camp, because it was clear he was a stranger there, but in Nairobi...

If Max was going to find Gina, he was going to follow every lead possible. He’d already made a mental note to have Peggy check out helicopter rentals in Kenya.

“Just because you don’t want to believe that Gina’s not this perfect little angel,” Morant was saying, “instead of what she really is—a flesh-and-blood woman who—” He cut himself off. “You know, maybe I’m wrong about the no boyfriend thing. There was this one Kenyan man... Paul Jimmo. He was killed shortly after I arrived. The entire camp took it pretty hard, Gina in particular.”

Paul Jimmo.

His intense hatred of a dead man named Paul Jimmo wasn’t helping him find Gina. Still Max couldn’t let that one word slide past without asking, “Killed?”

“Part of some ongoing battle over water rights,” Morant told him. “I don’t think he was involved. I think it was a wrong place, wrong time, innocent bystander thing.”

And wasn’t that just swell. Max didn’t want to think about the fact that, if it turned out to be true that Gina was romantically entangled with this Jimmo, it was just luck that she hadn’t been with him at the time.

But right now he had to focus on finding her. “Did you leave that message, on the hotel phone?” Max asked. “Telling Gina and Molly to go to the Embassy?”

“Yeah. That was me.”

“They didn’t get it,” Max told him. “It was new on the voicemail when I got here.”

“I figured. Considering they didn’t go to the Embassy. E. did send proof of life, by the way—a photo in a j-peg file—via e-mail. It was a picture of them both, sitting next to a TV showing Sunday’s soccer game. Yeah, it could have been digitally altered, but I doubt it. It looked like they were in some kind of warehouse. The TV was one of those little cheap ones.”

Gina was alive. Or at least she was as of Sunday night. Now Max’s hands were really shaking.

“You all right?” As Morant sat up, he grabbed his head. “Ow, Jesus!”

Along with the hoarse thing, he was going to experience a headache and dizziness for a while, too.

He wasn’t the only one. Max was actually seeing stars. “I want to see the picture,” he said.

“They’re okay,” Morant told him, back on the floor. “They look okay—not too happy, but they haven’t been hurt. Whoever has them knows the abduction business. They’re being taken care of.”

“I want to see the picture,” Max said again. “And then we need to e-mail this son of a bitch and tell him that nothing happens—nothing—until I talk to Gina on the phone.”

And tell her... what? I’m so sorry...

“What we need to do is get out of here,” Morant said, sitting up again, more slowly and carefully this time. “I’ve already been here too long.” He tilted his head from side to side, hand up on the back of his neck.

Whoever has them knows the abduction business. Considering the company Grady Morant had kept back in Indonesia, it could be said that he knew the abduction business. And it was a business in that part of the world.

“If we take the time now to sign online,” Morant was saying.

Max cut him off. “You had Internet access at the camp in Kenya?” He knew for a fact that wasn’t true. Yet this E. had allegedly e-mailed Morant?

“No,” Morant said. “We were lucky if we had warm water when we showered.”

“But you have an e-mail address...?”

Morant had a nifty explanation all ready to go. “When I worked for Chai—”

“That would be the notorious drug lord and murderer Nang-Klao Chai?” Max clarified.

Morant was silent then, just looking at Max. “Okay,” he finally said. “Yes, I’m talking about the same Chai. And point taken. You have plenty of reasons not to trust me. Are you going to hear me out or do you want to beat the shit out of me again? I’m ready, either way.”

“I’m listening,” Max said.

“What I’m not ready to do, is to sit here, fucking around, until enough reinforcements arrive so you can drag my ass to jail,” Morant told him. “If that’s your plan—”

“When you worked for Chai,” Max prompted.

Morant started over. He knew damn well he had no choice. “When I worked for Chai, we sometimes used an Internet message board to communicate. When I arrived here in Hamburg, sure enough, there was a message waiting for me there. Same code we used to use, directing me to an e-mail account already set up. Whoever the kidnappers are, they’re good.”

“How much money do they want?” Max asked, as Morant began to pull himself to his feet. He drew his own weapon, aimed it at the other man. “I didn’t say you could stand.”

Morant looked at him, looked at the gun. He didn’t seem impressed. “If we don’t leave here, some time in the very near future, very close to now, your friends from the Hamburg office are going to come in here, see me, and do their best to ship me back to the States. At which point, we’re fucked. You, me, Molly, and Gina.”

Of course Morant might not feel so threatened by a gun held in the hand of the man who’d already killed him once today. Killed him, but then brought him back to life.

“I will shoot you,” Max said. “I know you don’t think I’ll do it—”

“Actually, I do,” Morant said. “In fact, I’m counting on it—if it comes down to that. A word of warning though. If you do it here, it’s going to make transporting my body all the way to Indonesia one giant, sucking pain in the balls.”

And suddenly, it all made sense. The nearly illegible words on Morant’s arm. It wasn’t trace the form, it was trade them for me.

They didn’t want money—the people who took Molly and Gina. They wanted Grady Morant.

And, if they couldn’t get them out any other way, Morant was ready to deliver.

“I don’t know for sure who wants me,” Morant said quietly, “but whoever they are, they’re connected to Chai. And that means they’re not going to play by the rules—their goal is going to be to hurt me as badly as they possibly can. If they get me alive, they’re not going to release Molly and Gina. Instead they’ll make me watch them die.”

Christ.

“I will not let that happen,” Morant continued. “But I’m going to need your help.” He smiled grimly. “Yours and those Navy SEALs you had working with you last time we met. Here’s how it’s going to work—and by the way, this deal is nonnegotiable. You use your resources to help me find Molly and Gina. You and your supermen help me get them out alive. If everything goes well and I’m still standing when it’s over, I’m all yours. You can write the confession yourself—I’ll sign whatever you want. But you and your fucked-up government don’t get to touch me until Molly is safe and secure. And guaranteed to stay that way.”

Max gazed at Morant. Correct procedure had him stepping back from this. He was involved—he couldn’t be called upon to make the right decisions when Gina’s life was on the line. But was he really going to put Gina’s life into someone else’s hands?

Who could he trust with something like that?

Morant was right—first thing they needed to do was to get out of here. Once Frisk’s team showed up, he’d have far fewer choices.

Max put the safety back on his gun. Reholstered it. Took off what was left of his jacket. “Get your weapon,” he ordered Morant. “Let’s go.”

And, of course, because it had been exactly that sort of crazy, bad-luck, fucked-up year, it was too late.

Someone knocked on the hotel room door.