OMEWHERE IN EASTERN EUROPE

EXACT DATE: UNKNOWN

PRESENT DAY

They were alive.

So far, at least, they were still alive.

Gina had always heard that the survival rate of abductees dropped significantly the moment they got into a car with their abductor.

She wondered what the odds were for abductees who were put into a metal shipping container.

Although, for the first time in days they weren’t being held at gun-point by a WWE–sized woman who spoke just enough English to be able to order them not to talk.

“Are you all right?” Molly whispered now from the darkness.

Gina had a splinter in her butt from an unfortunate encounter with a wooden pallet. And she had been certain not just once, but many times over the past blur of days that her life was about to end violently. Oh, yeah, and she was currently sitting in a box without any source of light.

All right didn’t quite cut it.

Still at least this was a fairly large box. It wasn’t large enough for them to stand up, but they could both sit comfortably, and even lie down.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Are you all right?” she asked, because a butt-splinter was nothing compared to what Molly must’ve been feeling. This was so not what the doctor had had in mind when he’d given Molly instructions to take it easy for a few days.

“I’m a little sore,” Molly admitted. “And queasy. What else is new? Gina, I am so sorry—”

“Me, too,” Gina said.

As the darkness pressed in on her, she moved her face closer to the short length of hose that provided them with outside air. Wherever they were, it smelled like diesel. It was dank and polluted.

And very, very dark.

God, she wanted Max. She wanted him to come and rescue her. She wanted to hear his voice, to have him tell her to stay calm, that he was on his way.

That he was sorry for being such a jerk, and that he loved her and wanted to spend the entire rest of her life as her personal slave, to try to make up for it.

Hey, as long as she was fantasizing about the impossible, she might as well dream big.

“I can’t believe you didn’t run away when you had the chance.” Gina’s voice shook. “His gun was on me.”

“And leave you?” Molly countered. Gina heard her moving around. “Never. Besides, I’m the one they want. There’s something in here with us. Bottles. Plastic ones.”

“That name the Italian man kept mentioning,” Gina asked Molly, as she, too, gingerly reached out in the darkness to see what she could feel. “Grady Morant?”

“That’s Jones’s real name.”

That was what Gina had thought. Molly had told her that Dave Jones was as much of an alias as Leslie Pollard, but had never told her exactly what her husband’s name truly was.

Grady. Huh. He didn’t look like a Grady.

“And those people with the guns in Gretta’s studio?” Gina asked as her hand closed around a blanket. Not one but two. “Are they looking for Grady Morant, too?”

The angry people with the guns who’d all started shooting in the forger’s studio... It was a miracle Gina and Molly hadn’t been killed.

That woman, Gretta—the one who had made Jones his new and very expensive fake passport—had been killed. Bullets had hit her and her blood had sprayed, and for quite a few horrific moments Gina had been back on that hijacked airliner, back when the terrorists killed the pilot, as he fell onto the deck beside her, half of his head gone, as Alojzije Nabulsi battered and beat her, slamming himself inside of her in that act of violence and hatred that so wasn’t her fault.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, she was going to be sick.

“I don’t know who they were,” Molly was saying as Gina put her head down, praying that the waves of dizziness would subside. “He saved us, you know—the Italian man?”

Saved them? Was she nuts?

Saved them by taking them, at gunpoint, to a dingy, dank warehouse and making them sit on wooden pallets in silence for hours and hours while he went off to finalize arrangements for their luxury accommodations here in this metal box...?

The biggest question, of course, was, saved them for what?

“He seemed apologetic,” Molly pointed out. “When he shut us in here. He said he doesn’t want to hurt us.”

“He’s lying,” Gina said, and her voice was like something out of The Exorcist, a raspy squawk, only Molly didn’t hear her.

She was counting aloud.

“Nineteen, twenty... Twenty-one,” Molly announced. “I’ve got twenty-one bottles of water, and a pack of adult diapers—thank God for small favors.”

Thank God? Thank God that their armed and dangerous Italian kidnapper had thrown a package of freaking adult diapers into this shipping crate, so that while he sent them God knows where, they’d be able to pee not quite in their pants?

Molly had been hit by disaster after disaster over the past few weeks, and yet her optimistic attitude continuously put Gina to shame. And Gina was usually no slouch herself in the positive thinking department.

“Water is good,” Molly continued. “Water implies that he wants us to arrive alive.”

Yeah, but what was going to happen to them when they were unpacked at their destination—wherever that was?

The fact that they were bait was a no-brainer. And bait only had to be kept fresh to a certain point.

Gina had been sure Italian Gun Man was going to kill them after taking that photograph of them next to the TV set, when they’d first arrived at the warehouse. Proof of life, it was called. Usually it was done with hostages holding a newspaper, but a live broadcast soccer game on cable TV apparently worked, too.

Sometimes it wasn’t proof of life. Sometimes it was proof of possession. And after that was established, hostages could become unnecessary.

There was a loud noise now—the sound of an engine being started. And then a lurch, and they were moving.

Heading God knows where.

Hurtling toward their fate.

Gina couldn’t help herself. She started to cry.

Molly shuffled toward her in the darkness, finding her and wrapping her arms around her. “Lord, Gina, I’m scared to death—and I can only imagine what this is like for you.”

“It’s like,” Gina said, wiping her face with her grubby hands, no doubt creating some real mud, “I’ve been sealed in a box.” Like she was already dead, but she just didn’t know it yet. Her voice wobbled. “I really miss Max.”

“I know, honey,” Molly said, hugging her. “Right now, even I miss Max, and I hold a grudge against him for hurting you.”

Gina laughed. It was shaky but it was laughter. “You’ve never held a grudge in your life.” Along with being ridiculously optimistic, Molly was quick to forgive. Jones—Grady—had once teased her by saying she’d give Hannibal Lecter a second chance. Which brought Gina back to a far less humorless subject.

“Don’t let Gun Man—the Italian guy—fool you,” she told her friend. “He doesn’t see us as people. We’re worms on his hook. If it suits his purpose to keep us alive, we’ll stay alive. If not... You know that saying, ‘When you expect the best of people, you’ll get the best...?’ This is not one of those times.”

Molly was silent. She wasn’t usually silent when she disagreed, but this time she restrained herself. Gina knew if there had been light in there, the expression on her face would have given her away. Her rebuttal would start with “But...” But he seems so soft-spoken. But he seems like a gentleman. But...

“I’m serious, Mol,” Gina said. “Don’t make friends with this guy.”

Because when he savagely beat and raped them before he finally killed them, it would be just that much worse.

“You’re not alone this time, Gina,” Molly told her. “We’re going to get through this. Together. Jones is going to come and—”

“Get himself killed,” Gina pointed out.

“Not if I have anything to say about that.” Conviction rang in Molly’s voice. “And not if you do, either.”

HOTEL ELBE HOF, HAMBURG, GERMANY

JUNE 21, 2005

PRESENT DAY

Jules stood back as Agent Jim Ulster knocked on the hotel room door again.

“You sure we got the right room?” Ulster asked his partner, a stocky, friendly faced woman that he called Goldie.

“This is the one,” Jules told them. “Eight-seventeen.”

Goldie—her real name was Vera Goldstein—double-checked her notepad. “Yes,” she verified. “It’s the room. Maybe Mr. Bhagat stepped out.”

“Unlikely,” Jules said.

“It is dinner time,” she said. “Even legends need to eat.”

“Trust me,” he said. “Max doesn’t stop for dinner even when the case he’s working on isn’t personal. He’s in there. But he may not want to be disturbed.”

“I heard he’s a little strange that way,” Goldie said. “That you need an engraved invitation to go into his office.”

Short, whip-thin, and radiating impatience, Ulster was the Ren to Goldie’s gentle Stimpy. The man didn’t want to stand around shooting the breeze. He knocked on the door again. Louder.

“No,” Jules said, “that’s not true. I mean, yes, when you talk to him, you better know exactly what you’re going to say. If you waste his time, he’ll let you know, but...”

“I really don’t think he’s here,” Ulster said, managing to check his watch, his cell phone, and surreptitiously adjust his balls in one swift movement.

And the door opened.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Max said. “I had a little accident, and I was getting cleaned up.”

Hello! Lying liar at twelve o’clock.

Goldie and Ulster were definitely fooled, blinded as they were by the shining glory of he-who-was-Max Bhagat. Although calling him shining in his current condition was a real stretch.

It was clear to Jules that someone had—quite recently—kicked the crap out of his legendary boss.

Recently enough so that his nose was still bleeding. Max had changed his shirt, sure, but his jacket and tie were noticeably absent. He held a washcloth up to his nose as the two agents introduced themselves like a pair of star-struck schoolgirls. Even Ulster was stammering now.

“I caught my foot in the electric cord for the lamp,” he told them, a charming, chatty Max Bhagat—lying his ass off. “Broke the damn thing. The lamp, not my nose. Thank God for that at least.”

It was definitely weird. With Max looking the way Max looked, there should have been a body or at least a very sore and aching loser, handcuffed to the pipe under the bathroom sink. And, as was appropriate in the law enforcement biz, when gathering for a meeting, post–body-accumulating, nose-bleed-inducing encounter, Max should have pointed to said loser and said, “Book ’em, Dano.”

Or, in this case, “Book ’em, Goldie.” Not blah, blah, lamp, blah, blah, nose.

As Jules stood there in the hall, he had a sudden vision of Max, as the completely insane but utterly delicious Edward Norton character in Fight Club, beating the hell out of himself in quite a few rounds of down and dirty, no rules, ultraviolent brawling.

Weird was putting it mildly.

And then... it got even weirder.

“Have you met Bill Jones, from the D.C. office?” Max asked Ulster and Goldstein as he stood back and let them into the room.

What the who?

But there was, indeed, a man in the room, sitting at the desk, using the hotel phone, as if he were taking a Very Important Call, hence his inability to answer the door.

Sure.

Most people sucked at faking a phone call, and Bill Jones was no exception.

He was tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome, and Jules had met him once before, only it wasn’t anywhere near the D.C. office. And the name he’d been using at the time sure as shit wasn’t Bill.

He hung up the phone, but as Max introduced him to Frisk’s agents, he didn’t get to his feet.

Possibly because Max had broken both his knees.

What was going on here?

“You’ve worked with Bill before, right, Cassidy?” Max had structured it as a question, but in truth, it was a direct order.

So Jules answered it the same way he answered all orders from his boss. “Yes, sir.” He held out his hand for Jones to shake. “Bill. How are you, buddy? Nice to see you again.”

And with that, Max was no longer the only liar in the room.

Yup, Billski had battered knuckles. And the shadow of a bruise was forming on the man’s jaw. And what was he holding onto with his left hand, hidden there in the pocket of his jacket?

Odds were it wasn’t his favorite Beanie Baby.

And, lookee over there, stuffed in yonder wastebasket. That wad of dark fabric had to be the tattered remains of Max’s suit jacket.

Torn and bloodied, no doubt, while tripping over a lamp cord.

Glad they got that all straightened out.

“You came all this way for nothing, I’m afraid,” Max—that gracious, charismatic, friendly Max—said as he smiled ruefully at Ulster and Goldstein.

It was kind of like stepping into an alternate universe. One where Mr. Spock had a beard, and Max was jovial.

“I managed to download the picture from the camera,” Happy-Max continued. “I already sent it in a J-peg file to my team back in the States. The good news is that’s one less thing for your team to do. I know Frisk’s pushing you hard—everyone’s tired.”

Jules headed toward the window, pretending to check out the early evening view of the city’s twinkly lights. He stepped over the broken lamp, leaning toward the glass to look down at the bustling street below.

His good friend Billy Jones didn’t like that he was over there at all. It meant he had to divide his attention between watching Jules and watching Max, who was still over on the other side of the room. It meant if he were going to discharge that Beanie Baby, he’d have to choose who to shoot first.

Dude made his choice, and watched Jules.

Possibly because he’d already disarmed Max. Although, wait. Wasn’t that Max’s shoulder holster and sidearm over there on the bed? As if he’d placed it there while he’d changed his bloody shirt?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Max was deep in discussion with Ulster and Goldie—talking about the information that had turned up after the analysts had poured over thousands of satellite images.

They’d traced the vehicle that had exploded near the cafe, backwards chronologically on the day of the explosion, all the way to the rundown apartment where this particular terrorist cell had been squatting. They also noted that the tangos had made a pit stop while en route to the airport that very same morning.

“They stopped at the home and workshop of...” Goldie consulted her little notepad but apparently couldn’t read her handwriting. She frowned at Ulstie. “Is it Gretl or Gretta?”

God forbid she make a mistake while talking to Max Bhagat.

Jules could relate.

He, too, was not eager to make a mistake in front of Max. Such as allowing a dangerous criminal who might know Gina’s whereabouts to sit with a loaded weapon in his hidden left hand.

“Gretta Kraus,” Ulster said with confidence that quickly wavered. “I think.”

Over at the desk, Bill Jones finally gave Jules an opening as he turned back toward Max. “Gretta Kraus?” he repeated. “The counterfeit artist?”

Jules took advantage, moving swiftly behind Jones. Bending down, he pretended to pick something up off the floor as he removed his sidearm from his shoulder holster. Keeping it concealed, he straightened up. And, behind the chair’s padded back, where Goldie and Ulster couldn’t see it, he aimed the barrel of his weapon at the man’s spine.

Jules put his other hand on Jones’s very broad, very muscular shoulder as he spoke quietly, right into the man’s attractive ear. He smiled, as if they were sharing a friendly secret or a workplace complaint. Can you believe this dickweed boss of ours won’t let us have even ten minutes to grab a slice of pizza? “Left hand up and on the table, friend.”

“Gretta Kraus, the forger,” Goldie was telling Max. “She had a lucrative business creating passports, driver’s licenses, birth certificates—you name it, she’d make it. And, yeah, I’m sure in certain circles she was thought of as an artist.”

“Back off,” Jones muttered to Jules. Louder, he said, “Was?”

His hand stayed in his pocket.

Which pissed Jules off. He leaned close again to whisper to Jones that until he put his hand on that desk, he better not so much as pass gas or he’d end up extremely dead, but the man actually shushed him.

And Max, as usual, aware of everything going on around him, met Jules’s eyes and shook his head. It was the slightest movement, done while he smiled—yes, and smiled patiently, boys and girls—at Vera Goldstein.

That head-shake was an obvious warning, a silent echo of Jones’s own words, back off. But now Jules had to wonder if Max, who was probably being coerced, was capable of making the right choices.

So he stayed exactly where he was.

“We went over there, to ask some questions,” Goldie was reporting, “and everyone was dead—Gretta, her husband, their sons, her assistant.”

“Oh shit,” Jones breathed.

“Forensics estimates they died on the same day as the bombing,” Goldie continued, starting to dig for something in her shoulder bag. “But they lived in a part of town where gunshots go unreported, so...”

Max was nodding to show he was listening, but he’d moved to the bed, where he picked up his shoulder holster and put it on. A message to Jules?

Definitely. But Jones could well have taken all of the bullets out of that handgun that Max slid home and locked down with velcro.

Goldie was still talking as she searched through her massive shoulder bag. “The security cameras in Gretta’s workshop were all destroyed, so we were working on the theory that the terrorist cell came in, killed them, and then took what they wanted—forged passports and visas and ID cards. But then we did an electronics sweep...” She triumphantly came up with a DVD in a plastic jewel case. “And we found backup security—one of those hidden nanny-cams. There’s no sound, but the picture’s very clear. We made you a copy of the digital recording, sir, so you don’t have to go all the way downtown to see it.” She presented it to Max with a flourish.

“Thank you,” Max said, reaching out to shake her hand, even as he moved back toward the door. He was very good at signaling the end of a conversation, although he usually did it with a flat Shut the door behind you. “I’ll definitely review it later—”

Ulster, however, didn’t budge. “No, sir, I’m sorry—we didn’t make it clear.” He ruined the generous, blame-embracing effect of the word we by shooting a look at his partner that broadcast You Stupid Eeee-diot quite loudly. “We’re not certain, but we think your, uh, friend, Gina, and her traveling companion had an, um...”

“Less-than-kosher connection to Gretta Kraus,” Goldie finished for him. “This is probably the last thing you want to hear, sir, but according to this footage—” she tapped the DVD “—they were there, in the studio, when the terrorists arrived. They barely made it out alive.”

“Oh, shit,” seemed to be Jones’s new mantra.

Happy-Max had vanished. His replacement brought the DVD over to the desk, as Jones woke up the computer.

“Why, for the love of God, would they go to Gretta Kraus’s workshop?” Max asked it as a rhetorical question.

Jones kept his mouth shut, although it was clear to Jules that he knew the answer.

“We were hoping you’d be able to tell us,” Ulster said to Max.

The DVD began to play, and both Max and Jones leaned in to watch. Jules had a clear view over Jones’s broad shoulder.

Max—the real Max who could turn coal to diamonds with certain tightly clenched muscles—used the opportunity to tell Jones, sotto voce and through gritted teeth, “I’m going to kill you. More slowly and painfully this time so that—”

But then Goldie was upon them, leaving the rest of Max’s threat hanging. This time? Jules could only guess what that meant.

The female agent used her pen to point to the screen, which revealed a stagnant shot of what could have been an architect’s studio. Slanted work surfaces, stools, clean lines, bright colors, cut flowers in ceramic vases—it looked like a page from the upscale section of an Ikea catalogue. She tapped. “This is Gretta.”

Gretta was neither typical Hollywood thriller forger-nerd, with pocket protector, thick glasses and streaks of ink on her face and hands, nor James Bondian catsuit-wearing babe-of-evil. She was, instead, 100 percent German hausfrau. Fifty and frumpy. Good for her, for not conforming to expectations.

Except wait. Not so good for her—considering they were watching the last few minutes of her life. She was about to become the newest poster girl for the Crime Doesn’t Pay campaign.

“Gretta’s husband and her sons,” Goldie pointed again with her pen to three men leaning over a computer, much the way Max, Jones, and Jules were doing now. Except Max, Jones, and Jules had all of their teeth. As they watched, the oldest of the three men took his out, putting it—them?—on a plate alongside of what looked like a donut.

Yikes.

A youngish woman entered the frame, “Gretta’s assistant,” Goldie narrated. “And watch Mr. Kraus as she brings the women in. He makes a phone call.”

On the screen, the assistant was followed by... Yes, that was definitely Gina, but with an adorable haircut, along with another woman. And sure enough, over by the computer Mr. Kraus looked at them, then slipped in his teeth and picked up the phone.

As Jules watched, both Max and Jones tensed, and Jones oh shitted.

“That’s her,” Max told Goldie and Ulster, trying hard to resurrect Happy-Max, but not quite able, considering. “Gina. And her friend, Molly Anderson.” He looked at Jules. “Also known as Mrs. Leslie Pollard. She was married recently. When was it exactly...? Do you remember what Father Soldano told us, Bill?”

“About four months ago,” Jones said, his voice tight as he stared at the screen.

And Jules finally backed off, because he now understood. Jones was apparently as invested in finding Molly and Gina as Max was. And, for various reasons—the most obvious being that the man would be wrestled to the floor, handcuffed, and immediately extradited to the United States—Max wasn’t ready to disclose Jones’s true identity to Ulster and Goldstein.

Jules, however, was trusted with the truth. He reholstered his weapon, pretending he had an itch under his arm.

On the screen, Molly seemed pissed. A statuesque redhead whose entire attire and attitude screamed crunchy-granola Unicef Mama, she was talking and talking, but Gretta just kept shaking her sullen head. “I’m sorry,” it looked as if she were saying. And, No. “Nein.”

Gina stood there, hugging her nifty ergonomic backpack, as if she’d rather be anywhere else in the world.

Jules couldn’t wait to find out what they were doing there. Although he suspected if he asked, “Who here needs a professionally forged passport and ID?” only one of them would raise his battered-knuckled hand.

But what kind of lowlife scum willingly sent two women into a literal den of thieves?

Jules predicted that after Max got rid of Ulster and Goldie someone and someone else might just trip over the ol’ lamp cord again.

On screen, Molly didn’t give up. She just kept talking. Jules wished this recording had a soundtrack. He could only imagine how frustrated Max must be.

Gretta now looked pissed. She pulled out a file from a cabinet, tossed it on her desk, gesturing to Molly.

Maybe it was just Jules’ vivid imagination, but Gretta had to be saying, auf Deutsch, of course: “So who’s going to pay for this? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

This being the masterpiece of forgery that was surely in that file. Whatever it was, the camera angle didn’t pick it up. Jules guessed passport. And he’d bet big dinero that the photo used in the official document would show a remarkable likeness to the man sitting directly in front of him.

The name on the passport, of course, could have been anything. Anything except for Grady Morant, David Jones, or Leslie Pollard.

“Bill” had already used those names—he would surely have chosen something fresh and new. Something, oh, say, not on anyone’s Most Wanted List.

On the computer screen, Gina was now digging in her bag. Opening her wallet. As she and Molly now argued, she handed Gretta a... credit card?

Even more absurd was the fact that Gretta took it. She vanished out of range of the camera as Molly and Gina stepped closer to each other to continue their disagreement.

“NTS International,” Max murmured.

Of course. That mysterious twenty-thousand-dollar charge to Gina’s credit card. NTS International was a temporary front for Gretta Kraus’s lucrative illegal business. No wonder they were having trouble tracking them.

“Now, here’s where the husband gets a phone call, probably from the front office,” Goldie pointed to the screen. Sure enough, in the background, Mr. Kraus again picked up the phone. What were the chances that the old guy’s first name was Klaus? “And now he goes out front and...”

Mr. Kraus came back into the workshop with another man.

Jules had never seen him before, but Gina and Molly sure as hell seemed to recognize him. They backed away. As if they were afraid of him.

“Motherfucker,” Jones expleted, apparently having used up his oh shit reserve. “He’s clearly our guy and those assholes just walked him in.”

“Do you know him?” Max asked Jones, who was probably still alive thanks only to Goldie and Ulster’s continued presence.

“No. You?”

“No.”

As everyone on that screen did more of that silent talking, the man—dark hair, medium height and build, mustache, maybe mid-fifties—casually took out a handgun. His demeanor wasn’t threatening, but that weapon really ramped up the mood from frightened to scared shitless.

Gretta Kraus got into the discussion then, as Gina stepped slightly in front of Molly.

And it was Max’s turn to cuss. He glared at Goldie. “Do we have an ID on him?”

“Not yet, sir,” she said. “It was lower priority, since he doesn’t seem to be connected to the terrorists and... See, here’s where Gina’s got her passport behind her—it’s in her wallet. See, she’s backed up against Gretta’s desk and...”

As they watched, courtesy of the camera positioned back behind that desk, Gina slipped her wallet—large, made of brown leather—beneath some of the papers scattered there.

Maybe she was trying to hide her identity. Or maybe she thought that without her passport, she wouldn’t be able to leave the country.

“Molly’s passport was in there, too,” Jones said. He glanced up at Goldie, adding, “Probably. I mean, she’s not carrying a purse or anything, so I’m guessing...”

“And now the shooting starts,” Jim Ulster took over the narration.

On the screen, everyone jumped, as if there was a sudden loud noise from out in the other room.

Gretta, who’d been standing close to Gina, went down, hard, with a spray of blood.

“Ah, God,” Max breathed, no doubt noticing the look of pure horror on Gina’s face. She didn’t quite know what had happened. She was still just standing there.

The room exploded around her as bullets hit the plaster walls, the lamps, those vases with cut flowers. And the mustached gunman, who’d already tackled Molly, dragged Gina down with him to the floor.

On the far side of the room, the two younger Kraus men grabbed for weapons—serious-ass military-type machine guns—ready to fight back. But their as-of-yet unidentified gunman didn’t waste a single second returning fire. He shouted something to Gina—he had her by the wrist—and she grabbed Molly. And he pulled them both with him out of camera range.

“Back door’s back behind the camera, to the left on your screen,” Ulster told them, as they watched the last two Krauses get riddled with bullets and fall.

“Whoever he was,” Goldie said, “he definitely saved Gina and her friend’s lives.”

Maybe so. But it was obvious to Jules that Max wasn’t on the verge of giving Mr. Mustache-Man a medal.

Goldie reached over and paused the DVD. “The rest of the footage is the terrorists trashing the place as they look for passports. They find Gina’s wallet on Gretta’s desk—it’s clear this is how they got hold of it. It also explains why the same-day, one-way airline ticket that was made in her name was paid for with her own credit card. We’re no longer looking at her as a possible connection to the cell.”

They’d actually thought Gina was...? Jules made a noise of indignation, even though he knew they’d had to consider all possibilities.

“I want an ID for that gunman,” Max ordered. “Bump it higher in priority.” His phone rang. “Excuse me.”

He turned away to answer it, and Jules’s phone rang, too.

As he reached for it, Goldie and Ulster also started ringing.

That was never a good sign. Four agents, all getting called at once?

Something big had happened—an attempt on the President’s life, a nuclear meltdown, or...

“Goddamn it!” The real Max came roaring back to life, full force this time. He hit the mute button on his phone. “Don’t answer that, Cassidy!”

Or a terrorist attack.

Jules had his phone in his hand. He recognized the caller’s number. “It’s Yashi.” From the D.C. headquarters.

Max had already turned back to his call. “Please repeat—I’m having trouble hearing you.”

“Oh, my God,” Goldie was saying into her phone. “Right away. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am!”

“They did what?” Ulster was equally distressed, one finger in his non-phone ear. “Oh, crap. Okay. Yeah, okay. We’ll be right in.”

Jesus, this couldn’t be good.

“What’s going on?” Jones asked Ulster as he hung up.

“We’ve got to go,” Ulster said. “We’ve got at least three commercial passenger planes in the air sending out an SOS. Air marshals have prevented hijackings, but they believe there are bombs on board that’ll go off if the planes try to land.”

“We’ve also uncovered a plot to set off a series of dirty bombs in U.S. and European cities,” Goldie gathered up her shoulder bag and headed for the door. “We’ve located three of the bombs, but at least two are still at large.”

“The connection’s bad,” Max said into his phone. “I can’t hear you. Call me back.” He hung up as Ulster and Goldstein paused at the door, waiting for him to dismiss them. “Go,” he said, and they went. “Jules.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You heard what’s going down?”

“Yes, sir.” Apparently, they were on the verge of a global terrorist attack. The one they always said was coming—and this time they’d been ready. They’d apparently already stopped much of it from happening, now they were going to stop the rest.

“That call you didn’t take,” Max told him grimly, “It’s someone telling you to get your ass back to D.C. When you call them back, they’re going to say you’ll have to catch a military transport, because all commercial airports in the U.S. have been shut down.”

Sweet baby Jesus. “All of them?”

“Yeah. I’m not going in,” Max told him. “For obvious reasons. But Peggy Ryan will take over—I have total faith in her. In the entire team. In you, too. But I know you and Peggy have knocked heads, so... Just tell me where you want to be assigned, and you’ll go there. As a team leader. She’ll eventually get used to you.”

What? “Excuse me, sir, you’re talking like you’re never coming back.”

Max nodded. “Yeah.”

Shit.

Double shit.

Jules hadn’t expected Max to ask him to stay and help find Gina and Molly. Not in so many words, anyway. But he really hadn’t expected this tell me where you want to be assigned, “have a nice life” bullshit.

Which didn’t mean that Jules couldn’t volunteer to stay right here. Especially considering the manpower needed for a hostage rescue. If Max had been thinking he was going to be able to utilize any type of Special Ops group like SEAL Team Sixteen to assist in Molly and Gina’s rescue... Honey, he was going to have to think again.

Those guys were going to be a little busy over the next few days, saving the world and whatnot.

Which meant... what? Max and No-name Jones over there, kicking down the kidnapper’s door all by their little lonesome?

“God, you know, I really hate Peggy Ryan,” Jules told Max now. “She is such a pain in my ass. If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’ll just keep on keeping on, assisting you with this case. Just because the rest of the world’s on fire doesn’t mean two kidnapped women don’t matter. They need saving, so let’s go save ’em.”

Max was shaking his head. “Careers are going to be made, based on what happens over the next few days,” he pointed out.

Jules just looked at him for several long seconds. “That might be truly the most offensive thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Max didn’t look even slightly ashamed. His nose, however, was a little swollen. “That doesn’t make it any less true.”

Jones, aka Grady Morant, was watching them from his seat at the desk. Now that the comedy team of Ulster and Goldstein had left the building, his left hand, Jules noted, was no longer in his pocket.

“Why is it,” Jules asked Jones, “that Max can’t simply look me in the eye and tell me he wants me to stay, that he needs my help?”

Jones shook his head. Shrugged. “I’m not,” he said, “you know. Gay.”

Jules laughed his surprise. “What does that have to do with...?” Did Jones think...? Okay. Apparently no help would be coming from that quarter.

Jones stood up. “Can we get out of here? We need to figure out how the hell we’re getting to Jakarta. If commercial airports are shutting down...”

Jules’s phone started ringing again. He turned to Max. “You said tell me where I want to be assigned, I told you. What more do you need me to say?”

Max seemed to make up his mind. He nodded. “Answer that,” he ordered Jules. “And tell Yashi that I made you a team leader—that you’re in charge of this kidnapping investigation, and that you need three seats on the next flight to Indonesia—civilian or military, it doesn’t matter which, as long as you can board unchallenged with two passengers.”

“I’m in charge? As in, what? You’re assisting me?” Jules laughed. But Max didn’t join in. “Whoa. Wait, sir. I—”

“Tell him,” Max spoke over him, “as team leader, I tendered my resignation to you, and you accepted.”

What?

The ringing was driving him nuts. Jules answered his phone. “Yash, I’ve got to call you right back.” He hung up. “I beg your pardon, sir, but what the hell?”

“I can’t be in charge of this case,” Max said. “I can’t participate in any official capacity. Gina’s my... girlfriend.”

It was entirely possible, that was the first time he’d ever called her that. As it was, he practically choked on the word.

But before Jules could scoff at him—what a baby, and what a stupid word to choke on, for crying out loud, because Gina was not a girl and hello, he hadn’t even seen her in a year and a half—Max spoke again.

“She means everything to me,” he whispered. “She’s my life. Without her...” He shook his head.

And Jules realized with a jolt of shock that Max had tears in his eyes. It was one thing to see the man cry upon discovery that Gina wasn’t dead, but this...

“I’d sacrifice anything for her,” Max admitted now. “Including your career. So, yes, I will say it. I want you to stay and help me get her back.”

Jules didn’t hesitate. “I accept the position,” he told his friend. “And I accept your... you know.” Resignation. He accepted it, but couldn’t quite bring himself to utter the word.

Max nodded. “Call Yashi,” he ordered. “I’ll pack the laptop so we can communicate with the kidnapper—he calls himself E. We need to e-mail him—he’s already contacted Morant here through a special account. I’m going to demand additional proof of life. He sent a photo, but I want phone contact. Oh, and you should probably be aware, before I quit, I cut a deal with Mr. Morant. We don’t touch him until Molly and Gina are safely in our custody. After that, he’s all ours.” He caught himself. “Yours.”

“Only in my dreams,” Jules said, as he dialed his cell phone. “Because, you know, dude says he’s not gay.”

Jones ignored him. “I know it’s a long shot, but we should get whatever information we can about both e-mail accounts—his and the one he set up for me. Maybe we can trace his location.”

“Roger that,” Jules said. He’d also see if the D.C. office could spare any personnel, although it was extremely unlikely. Peggy Ryan wouldn’t miss him—he had no doubts about that. He also knew that she wouldn’t willingly assign away any other members of her team during a situation that involved a possible dirty bomb in the nation’s capital.

Still, maybe there was someone else on the team whom she suspected of being gay.

As he got bumped to Yashi’s voice mail, his phone beeped. He had an incoming call—from Peggy Ryan. Terrific. He was going to have to talk directly to the Wicked Witch of the West.

He anticipated the subtext of her message: “Good, you go to Indonesia and be gay there, thousands of miles away from me and the important press conferences I’m going to be holding.”

He could even imagine her barely concealed amused condescension that he was finally a team leader—without a real team.

“Hey, Peg,” Jules said as he answered his phone, as he watched Jones wind up the laptop’s power cord and hand it to Max, who was securing the computer in its carrying case.

Who said he didn’t have a real team to lead? And this wasn’t just a real team—it was a dream team.

Except wait—that was the hotel’s computer. Max realized it at the same moment that Jules did. Only Jones seemed to want to take it anyway, as backup.

And then, whoops, as he watched, Max grabbed Jones by the shirt and shoved him up against the wall.

“Hold please,” Jules said over Peggy’s terse list of orders. He muted his phone. “Back off,” he told Max.

Max didn’t move. “This son of a bitch sent his wife and Gina to pick up a new passport from—”

“I did not,” Jones said hotly. “She wasn’t supposed to go there.”

“Oh, so she and Gina just flew to Hamburg to, what? Shop?” Max said.

Jules’s entire team was on the verge of tripping over that dang lamp cord again.

“Back,” he ordered through gritted teeth, “Off. Let me talk to Peggy, and then we’ll sort this out.” Max still didn’t move. “That was not a request. Max.”

Wonder of wonders, the man actually obeyed. He released Jones with only a minimum of alpha-male jostling.

The two of them stood there then, eyeing each other with obvious distaste.

Jules unmuted his phone. “Sorry, Peg. Go ahead.”

It was possible that calling them a “dream team” was a teensy exaggera-tion.