-130 TROOP TRANSPORT—28,000 FEET OVER POLAND

JUNE 22, 2005

PRESENT DAY

It had been years since Jones had been a passenger on a U.S. military transport plane.

He’d never expected to board one again—at least not without handcuffs and leg shackles.

And never, not in his wildest dreams, had he imagined being asked, after achieving cruising altitude, by a gay FBI agent, no less—what was the world coming to?—whether he wanted cream and sugar in his coffee.

“Black’s fine,” he said.

As Jules Cassidy vanished toward the galley, Jones watched Max, who was talking on his cell phone on the other side of the cabin. One of the calls he was making was to some civilian security team called Troubleshooters Incorporated. He was hoping to hire some backup.

From the look on his face, the news he was getting wasn’t good.

“You okay?” the little gay agent asked as he came back with the coffee in a styrofoam cup, genuine concern in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Jones said. “Thanks.” If being worried shitless about Molly could be called okay.

Jules sat down in the seat next to him. They had the entire space to themselves—not a lot of troops being moved today. At least not to Indonesia. The fact that they were in the air at all was entirely due to Max’s clout. It was possible that one of the phone calls the former FBI bigwig had taken—out on the tarmac, after Jones had managed to completely embarrass himself—had been the U.S. vice president.

“We’re going to find her,” Jules said. For someone who was not only severely height challenged, but prettier than two-thirds of the women on the planet, Jules Cassidy exuded a christload of confidence. “Wherever she is, we’ll get her out. Safely. Gina, too.”

“With just the three of us?” Jones wasn’t convinced. While he had to admit that there probably never was a good day for a terrorist attack, the timing of this one really sucked. Jules’s request for support from SEAL Team Sixteen had already been denied.

“If we have to,” Jules said, and he wasn’t just bullshitting. He really believed it.

Over across the cabin, Max was still talking on the phone. Lines of weariness etched his face.

“I’m not sure what to call you,” Jules continued, pulling Jones’s attention back. “You know, what name to use. You have so many.”

“You can call me whatever the hell you want.” He took the lid off his coffee.

“You just... seemed uncomfortable before, when Max called you Morant.”

Jones took a sip of coffee. It burned all the way down. “And my discomfort level is of concern to you because...?”

Jules smiled. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been a team player, Grady, hasn’t it?”

“You know,” he said, “I think I would prefer it if you called me Jones.”

“Not feeling so much like Grady anymore, huh? That must be weird.” Jules’s eyes were sympathetic over the top of his coffee cup as he took a sip. “Plus, you were using the name Dave Jones when you first met Molly. I can see how that might make you attached to it. What does she call you?”

“None of your fucking business.”

Jules sighed. “I know that you’re worried—”

“You have no idea,” Jones said.

“You’re right,” Jules told him mildly. “I don’t. Except there are people that I love and worry about, too, so I can imagine how hard this is for you. If it’s any help, my Aunt Sue is a breast cancer survivor. And about a dozen of the women in my mother’s PFLAG chapter. People survive this.”

Jones was plenty familiar with different leadership techniques—everything from the fear-of-pain method used by someone like Chai, to Max’s holier-than-thou, double-dare method of leadership that Gina had so often talked about. Apparently working for Max Bhagat was a coveted assignment in the Bureau, but an agent had to earn it—even after they were on the man’s team. Let’s just see if you’re good enough to keep up, and if you are, maybe I’ll let you kiss my ring.

And then there was the touchy-feely leadership techniques that Jules employed. As a medic in the army, Jones had played the “we’re all buddies” card many times himself. How you doing, soldier? You’re going to be just fine. Where you from? Looks like you’re going to have a visit home if you just hang on a little bit longer...

“Spare me the pep talk,” Jones said. “Stop trying to handle me.” He realized what he’d said. “I mean that figuratively,” he quickly added. “I’m not accusing you of...”

Jules just sat back, smiling, and let him flounder.

“If you want, we could go through a list of things not to say,” he said after Jones had sputtered to a stop. “You don’t know dick, for example. If you ever feel the urge to say that, substitute shit. Shit’ll work.”

Jones laughed despite himself.

Jules’s smile was relaxed. Easygoing. He was completely comfortable with himself. It was hard not to like him, or at least be impressed by him.

“Just... stop trying to get inside my head, all right?” Jones said.

“FYI, I’m on your side,” Jules told him. He glanced at Max, still talking on his phone across the cabin. The ‘bad cop’ to Jules’s ‘good cop?’

Jones put what they were both thinking into words. “As opposed to Max, who seriously wants to damage me. Thanks for, you know, keeping him in line.”

Jules laughed again. But his smile faded as he looked at Jones’s collection of bruises. “You two really got into it, back in the hotel, huh?” It wasn’t really a question, and he didn’t wait for Jones to answer it. “He didn’t hurt you too badly, did he?”

Jones shook his head. It was actually embarrassing, considering he was so much bigger than Max. Taller, heavier. “I’m fine.”

“I can just imagine him, like, throttling you to the point of...” He looked more closely at the bruises on Jones’s throat. “Did he actually...?”

“I’m fine.”

But Jules seemed a little shaken as he gazed over at Max again.

They sat quietly for several minutes, then Jules cleared his throat.

“A few years ago,” he said, “Max had me do a low-profile on you.”

“I know what you’re going to ask next,” Jones said, “and the answer is yes, I really did work for Chai.”

“Oh,” Jules said. “No. There’s no question about that. We have plenty of proof tying you to illegal activities—not just through Chai, but a whole parade of Indonesian drug lords, gun runners, and garden-variety thieves.”

“Great,” Jones said. “That’s... just great.” His ten to twenty years in prison just increased a decade. Or three.

“Any idea which one of them might be behind this kidnapping?” Jules finished the last of his coffee. “Any grudges or vendettas or even just hard feelings—”

“It might be quicker to make a list of the ones who don’t have hard feelings.”

“We’ve got a long flight. Go crazy.” The FBI agent took a notepad from his pocket and handed it to Jones. Somewhere along their route, Jules had changed into jeans and a T-shirt, with a lightweight jacket to conceal his sidearm. He now fished for a pen. “I want to run a cross-check of records—see if anyone on your list comes up in connection with our kidnapper. Who, by the way, we’ve identified as Emilio Testa. Ring any bells?”

“None.” Jones still had Molly’s pen. He found it first. Waved it at Jules.

Who said, “I think Max must’ve stolen mine. Bastard. Anyway. Testa, Emilio Guiseppe. Born in Northern Italy, moved to Sri Lanka when he was in his late twenties. This was back during the Age of Aquarius—he’s currently sixty-two. I estimated fifty, so he must be eating right. CIA in Jakarta had a pretty thick file on him. Lots of low-level stuff—fencing stolen goods, conning tourists, black marketeering. He did some informing, too. He’d drop our spooky cousins some breaking news, they’d provide occasional Get Out of Jail Free cards. Oh, here’s something you’ll like: About a dozen years ago, the authorities suspected Testa was involved in a kidnapping ring, but they didn’t want to touch it, because the victims were always returned. That’s good news, right? Although maybe not, considering that what he wants in exchange for the women is you. And we don’t want to give him that.”

Yeah, because they wanted to make sure Jones spent the next fifty years locked up. Terrific.

“Testa’s allegedly been out of the game,” Jules continued, “living clean—according to my contact—for about ten years now. Which is maybe why you never ran into him. Rumor is he got married, settled down, had kids. Retired from his life of petty crime.”

“Not anymore,” Jones said, adding the self-appointed “General” Badaruddin to the list he was scribbling, along with Chai’s former dungeon master, Ram Subandrio. Last he knew, both were still alive and kicking. Although things changed fast in that part of the world.

“True,” Jules agreed. “And what are the big three motivators, you know—to make a person forsake his retirement?” He didn’t wait for Jones to respond. “Fear, pleasure, and/or greed.”

Across the cabin, Max had ended his phone call. He came over to them now, looking grim. “It’s a no-go. Everyone’s stretched thin. Trouble-shooters’ receptionist is gearing up, going out to assist on an op.”

Jules nodded as Max sat down across the aisle. “The Jakarta office is overwhelmed, too. So okay. We’re on our own. But it could be worse. There’s a lot of good news here. Starting with the fact that Gina’s smart. She’s unlikely to have told the kidnapper that she’s intimate friends with an FBI agent. That’s going to come as a surprise. We’ll locate him, we’ll set up surveillance—”

Was this guy for real? Jones interrupted. “Have you been to Indonesia? It’s huge—there are hundreds of islands. We’re going to need a boat to get from one to another and...” He laughed his exasperation. “If this Testa guy doesn’t want to be found, we’re not going to just... locate him.”

Jules gazed at him in surprise. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m sorry. Apparently ‘this Testa guy’ wants to be found. My contact has him living on Pulau Meda. It’s a small island near Pulau Romang, north of East Timor. Apparently he went on a trip about a week ago, but now he’s back. He was spotted at the local market just this morning.”

Jesus Christ. Jones was glad he was sitting down.

“We’ll need a helo or waterplane to get to Meda from Jakarta, yeah,” Jules continued, “but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem in this economy.”

“Testa won’t expect you to get from Hamburg to Jakarta quite so quickly,” Max told Jones. “Particularly now that it’s difficult for civilians to travel. We’ll have the element of surprise in our favor.”

Jules’s phone rang. He stood up. “Excuse me.”

Could this really be that simple?

Land in Jakarta, get a island-hopper to this Pulau Meda, make sure Testa didn’t have an army guarding Molly and Gina, kick down the door...

And escort them safely home.

Jesus, how could it be that easy?

Probably because it couldn’t be, wasn’t going to be. The proximity to East Timor, where a deadly civil war had been raging for decades, wasn’t a particularly good sign.

Jones glanced over at Max, but the man’s eyes were closed. Probably not a good time to grill him on the current political situation in East Timor and Indonesia.

He closed his eyes as well, remembering his naiveté on his wedding night, back when he’d believed that the entire rest of his life was going to be blissfully easy.

Back before that visit to the doctor in Nairobi. Back before the cancer hit the fan.

The kicker was that he’d been fully prepared for it to be difficult. Being with Molly again, yet not able to be with her.

Not that he cared. He would have crawled, naked on his belly across hot coals, just to be with her. The other kind of being with her. The G-rated one.

And yet, there they suddenly were. Married. By a Catholic priest, no less. His mother would’ve cried tears of joy.

Mr. Pollard, you may kiss your bride.

Molly had dressed for the occasion in a brightly patterned dress that Sister Double-M clearly disapproved of, despite its long sleeves. It accentuated her curves, brought out the vivid color of her hair.

He’d loved it. Loved her.

But he’d kissed her as Leslie Pollard. Just the lightest, sweetest brushing of his lips across hers, there in a tent filled with flu-ridden nuns.

It wasn’t until later that night, after driving with Lucy all the way out to the Jimmo’s farm, that he’d truly kissed his bride the way he wanted to kiss her, during that ceremony.

Paul Jimmo was in the hospital in Nairobi—little did they realize then that he would die from his injuries early the next morning—but his mother and sisters welcomed them into their home.

It had been late, and Lucy had been assigned a bed in with the younger of the girls and quickly ushered off to sleep. He and Molly were given what was obviously the main bedroom.

Molly, of course, had wanted to use their unexpected privacy to talk. He’d barely closed the door behind them when she started.

“I want you to swear,” she said, “on the Bible, that your marrying me like this doesn’t put you into jeopardy.”

He laughed at that. “You know, my swearing on the Bible is very different from you swearing on it. It just doesn’t mean the same thing to me, Mol.”

“Then swear on whatever does mean something to you,” she countered.

“Whoever,” he told her quietly. “And I already have—all those promises I made you tonight? I meant them. I’d never do anything that would put you in danger.”

That was when he kissed her.

They had a whole night to share together and a real bed to spend it in. He shouldn’t have been in such a hurry, but damn, she was fire in his arms.

He fumbled with the zipper that stretched down the back of her dress. It took him too long to find the pull—he had to stop kissing her and turn her around.

But she moved away from him. Molly had never been shy before, but she went for the lantern, clearly intending to douse the light.

He caught her hand. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’ve gained weight,” she said.

“I haven’t noticed. And even if you have... so what? I love it. Gain more.”

She laughed at that, as he’d hoped she would. “You’re crazy.”

“No,” he said, kissing her again. “Molly, you’re even more beautiful than I remembered. And believe me, I spent a lot of time these past few years with my memories. Fantasizing about... this. About making love to you. Like this. With the light blazing.”

She gazed up at him, tears in her eyes. But she teased him. “Did you have to practice saying that? Making love... instead of...?”

“No!” he said, as if he really were indignant, but she knew him too well. Amusement was now dancing in her eyes.

“Well... yeah, maybe a little,” he admitted. He pushed her hair back from her face, winding one long curl around his finger. “I just... I don’t know. Practiced saying a lot of things. I came to find you as soon as I could. And, Not a day passed that I didn’t think of you and long to be with you.”

The tears were back. “That was a very nice one,” she told him.

“I figured I’d have to grovel on my knees so you’d even talk to me, let alone...”

“Let you fuck my brains out?” She uttered the words he’d once used to describe that particular act.

Jones laughed. It always cracked him up to hear that word coming from that mouth. “I’m your husband now. I don’t think I’m allowed to do that anymore.”

She laughed now, too. “You want to bet?”

This time she kissed him, pulling him back with her until they fell, in a tangle, on the bed.

But again, when he tried to take off her dress, she stopped him.

“I have a confession to make,” she said. Her hair was spread out on the white linen of the pillow, her skirt riding up, revealing her long, long legs. “I lied. I really haven’t gained that much weight.”

Distracted, he kissed the smooth paleness of the inside of her thigh, pushing his way up under her skirt. Goddamn, she smelled good. Her panties were white lace—very pretty. Very fragile and bridelike. But they needed to be gone. He ripped them.

“Hey!” She was laughing. “Are you listening? I’m confessing here.”

“No,” he said, and kissed her.

It was possible she kept talking to him, but probably not.

Even if she did, he didn’t hear a word. Except when she started reaching for him, pulling him up and on top of her, begging him, “Please...”

She had a condom ready, but it occurred to him that they didn’t have to use it. They were married—and what, was he crazy? No way were they having children. Had he completely lost his mind?

She helped him put it on, then reached to guide him inside of her with that goddamn dress and his shirt between them, his pants down around his ankles. Only it didn’t matter, because she was clinging to him and he was home, and he was home, and he was home...

It wasn’t until much, much later, when he was still sprawled partially atop her, as she ran her fingers through his hair and along the fabric stretched across his back, that he realized it was probably a good thing he still had his shirt on.

If he’d taken it off, she would’ve discovered the jagged scar near his right shoulder blade.

Jones had more than his share of scars on his back—souvenirs from his years in a prison where torture came in all forms and options. But this one was new. Seeing it was going to upset her and...

He pushed himself up and looked down at her, because he suddenly realized what her modesty was about.

She had been shot. Because of him. Back in Indonesia.

They’d found a suitcase filled with money. Everyone wanted it. Every two-bit thug, every terrorist wannabe. Together, he and Molly had done the right thing and returned it to its hiding place.

Only he’d gotten scared. He’d pretended to himself that it was greed. All that money—was he really going to leave it lying there? So he took it and ran. But he wasn’t running from the thugs who wanted that cash. He was running from Molly. From how good it felt to be with her. From his knowledge that he couldn’t protect her, couldn’t keep her safe—not as long as Chai was alive.

Of course, the bad guys came looking for the money. And when they didn’t find it, they’d shot her.

“Let me see it,” he told her now, shifting off of her, helping her sit up in that bed.

Being Molly, she knew exactly what he was talking about. “It’s not that bad.”

“Then why keep the dress on?” he asked.

She answered honestly. “It’s my wedding night, bucko. I’m supposed to have all kinds of wonderful memories of our first time together as man and wife. Forgive me for being shallow, but in my eyes, remembering that I made my bridegroom’s manly splendor shrink to the size of a peanut when I took off my wedding dress doesn’t qualify as wonderful.”

Molly slipped her arms out of her sleeves and...

Oh, Jesus.

She tried to distract him by taking off her bra, too. He loved her breasts, so soft and full, and she knew it, but...

Jesus Christ.

In some ways, she was right. It wasn’t that bad. It looked like what it was—a healed bullet wound in the soft part of her upper arm. Small, slightly puckered entry and exit scars.

But because it looked like what it was—the scars from a bullet wound—it was possible he was going to be sick.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“I am, too,” she said. “But it could have been so much worse.”

No kidding. The bullet that had torn into the flesh of her arm could have hit her in the chest. Or the throat. Or the head.

If it had, she’d be three years in her grave. And he’d be dead, too. Maybe not physically, but certainly emotionally.

Panic hit him. What if he was wrong about this being easy?

He’d told her with confidence that he believed they were safe, and he still stood by that. The story of Molly Anderson marrying some AAI geek to save the life of a Kenyan girl would make the international rounds. If anything, it would work in his favor—to confirm the rumors of Grady Morant’s—aka David Jones’s—untimely death.

As long as they didn’t draw any extra attention to themselves, they’d be fine. It was true, he’d have to be Leslie Pollard for the rest of his days, but there were certainly worse things.

No, it was the realization that Molly had people who wanted to shoot at her for reasons that had nothing to do with him that was making him crazy now.

Although, maybe, if he stayed very close to her, and never let her out of his sight...

She kissed him so sweetly. “Are you okay?”

He pulled back to look her in the eyes. “This is the last time we’re doing something like this,” he told her. “We get Lucy to Marsabit, we get back to camp, and we spend every free moment figuring out how to have sex silently.” Canvas walls being so thin and all...

“I think I’m going to need lots of practice,” she said, kissing him again.

“I guess the alternative is my learning how to say who’s your daddy? in Leslie’s accent.” He tried it. “Who’s your daddy?”

Molly laughed. He loved that sound. But she stopped laughing a little too soon. “I can’t make you any promises,” she said. “About... you know. If another girl comes to the camp, asking for help...”

“Yeah.” Jones was afraid of that. “How about this—you don’t leave the camp without me. Never. No exceptions. And if you do put yourself in danger, you have to do it knowing that when someone takes a shot at you, Mol, I will do my goddamn best to take that bullet for you.”

He’d obviously shaken her with that revelation. Good. Maybe she’d think twice about putting herself in danger.

But she tried to lighten the mood. “Are you going to be one of those really bossy, demanding husbands?”

“The kind who gets upset when his wife gets shot?” he countered. “Yes.” He kissed the scar on her arm, kissed her shoulder, her throat, her breasts as she tugged at his shirt, trying to get him to take it off. He helped her, letting her push him back against the bed, letting her straddle him. “The selfish kind who’s going to keep her from going back to the States to live—have you really thought about that?” he asked. “Your family’s there.” In freakin’ Iowa. What was she doing in Kenya?

“I have family here now,” she told him.

She kissed him then, as if she knew how much those words meant to him, as if she knew that she’d gone and made him get all choked up.

Big, tough, dangerous guy that he was, he wasn’t supposed to get misty eyed and think, “Shit, those are the nicest words I’ve ever heard.” He also wasn’t supposed to get all giddy whenever he looked at this woman and thought, “Hey, she’s my wife now.”

He’d always pretended that his favorite three-word sentence was “Fuck me harder,” not “I love you.”

Of course, Molly being Molly, she whispered them both into his ear that night.

And Jones knew that the only reason she didn’t shout it to the sky was that she was practicing being quiet.

They both were going to need a lot of work with that. A lot of work.

Of course, not all of this could be easy.

PULAU MEDA, INDONESIA

JUNE 24, 2005

PRESENT DAY

Gina ate monkey stew with her fingers, right out of the can, as she watched CNN on Emilio’s hostage-ready TV set.

Okay, yeah, it probably wasn’t monkey meat, but the label wasn’t in English, and she couldn’t begin to guess what it said. There was a small cartoon picture on the can—a monkey’s head, wearing a jaunty red cap, winking. It was probably only the company’s logo, though, not an identifier of what was inside.

Like that mermaid on those cans of tuna.

When she was little, she’d refused to eat tuna salad, afraid she might be chowing on one of Ariel’s less-popular sisters.

Her three older brothers had mocked her mercilessly. It was still a joke in the Vitagliano household.

Here, way on the other side of the world from East Meadow, Long Island, Gina would have traded just about anything to be teased by her brothers again.

She wondered what they were thinking, what they were doing. If they’d stayed home from work, due to the terrorist threat.

When Gina had tried turning on the TV, she’d never expected it would actually work. Emilio must’ve had a satellite dish, because he got HBO and Showtime as well as the various cable news channels.

It had been over a year since she’d seen Sex and the City, and one of the channels was having a marathon, but she was glued to the news, volume turned low so as not to disturb Molly, who was still fast asleep.

She flipped back and forth among the news stations, watching all the different anchors make the most of this attempted terrorist attack. The color code had been raised to a shrill orange as al Qaeda’s plots to explode dirty bombs in key cities around the world were exposed.

There was still one bomb at large, believed to be somewhere in the San Francisco area. Or maybe it was in D.C.

Coming up: How to survive a dirty bomb attack. Stay tuned for details...

Sheesh.

If a terrorist’s goal was to terrify, they’d succeeded even without detonating a bomb, thanks to some of these news stations.

In other headlines, there had been three unsuccessful attempts to hijack commercial airliners. All of those flights had landed safely in Nova Scotia after lengthy and quite daring midair rescues—which had involved defusing deadly bombs that had been missed by the luggage screeners.

Gina could imagine what it must’ve been like to be on one of those planes. Yeah, she could imagine it a little too well.

The entire series of events had started with the explosion of a bomb in a suburb of Hamburg—all on the very same day she and Molly had been kidnapped and stuffed into a shipping container.

So, wow. She’d been way wrong about that metal container. There were worse places on earth that she could have been.

Such as ground zero of that explosion.

Or in seat 24B, say, on any one of those hijacked planes.

And thank God she hadn’t taken the time to call her parents, to tell them she was taking that side trip to Germany. If she had, they’d be crazy with worry right now.

The TV was showing footage of downtown Washington, D.C. Men and women wearing jackets clearly labeled FBI in big white letters on the back were part of some sort of perimeter of guards set up around the White House.

Gina leaned closer to the screen, searching for a glimpse of Jules. She didn’t expect to see Max—he’d be inside the Situation Room, with the President. Or maybe he’d be in the Pentagon. Safe in some radioactiveproof chamber.

Which meant that he wasn’t coming to rescue her.

At least not any time soon.

Sure, she’d been telling herself that right from the start, but from the waves of disappointment that had been rolling over her since she’d first turned on the TV, it was clear that she hadn’t truly believed her own pessimistic spin.

She did now.

She was undeniably on her own.

She turned off the TV, and took the monkey stew can into the bathroom to rinse it out before putting it into the trash.

Her shirt, hanging over the shower bar, was mostly dry, but her pants were still damp.

What she wouldn’t give for a chance to talk to Max. To hear his voice.

To say to him, Hey, in case I die, I just want to make sure you know that I never stopped loving you. Right up to the very end.

Yeah, he’d never let her get past the in case I die part. “Stop with the negative thinking. You’re not going to die.”

But you’re not here to save me.

“I didn’t save you last time either, did I?” She didn’t have to work hard to imagine the strain that came into his voice whenever they talked about the hijacking she’d lived through all those years ago. “I didn’t make the scene until the terrorists were dead. Until it was too late.”

You were with me. The entire time. Gina truly hadn’t felt alone on that airplane. She’d felt Max’s presence, right from the moment he’d first made contact over the cockpit radio.

“Yeah, I was about as much use to you as an imaginary friend.”

Gina smiled, remembering how mad she used to get when he’d said things like that to her.

Okay, my imaginary friend. What do I do now? She’d already checked the entire room, making sure there were no hidden doors behind the furniture or beneath the wall-to-wall carpeting. The air conditioning vents were too small to use to escape. The walls were solid—painted concrete.

The ceiling looked like plasterboard. She’d tried digging at it with the can opener, but didn’t succeed at doing more than getting plaster dust in her hair. She’d need a saw to cut through it, and even then, it would take some serious time. Emilio or Crowbar Guy would notice the hole, and they’d be back to square one.

Or worse. Tied up.

She really didn’t want to spend the rest of her life tied up.

Gina sat down on the edge of the tub, closed her eyes, and tried to conjure up Max. What would he tell her, if she had him on the phone or—better yet—in the room with her?

“Find out want they really want. The key to any negotiation is knowing not what the opposition says they want, but what they really want.” If he were here, he’d be leaning against the counter, a picture of relaxed casualness.

What a joke. Of all the people she’d met in the world, Max was the most tightly wound. He was the most private, too, playing all of his cards close to his vest.

“Sometimes,” he’d told her once, when they were talking—but not about the things that truly mattered, like where they were going in their relationship, or how they truly felt, deep in their hearts, “it’s an even bigger challenge, because some people don’t know what they really want.”

He’d told her that he’d negotiated hostage situations where the hostage taker gave him a whole list of demands. Money, a helicopter to escape, a letter explaining his position printed in the newspaper, a pardon from the governor, and on and on. In truth, he’d just wanted someone to listen to him—really listen.

Max had also negotiated some situations where the hostage-taker was intent upon committing suicide by SWAT team. Not that the fool ever would have admitted it.

What Emilio wanted, however, seemed pretty cut and dried.

They have my wife.

Gina needed to find out who they were. Who had his wife, and why did they want Leslie/Dave/Grady in exchange for her?

Maybe she should sit down with Emilio and tell him about Max. Explain that he was a little tied up right now, but in a week or two he’d come here, and he and his FBI team would find and rescue Emilio’s wife and—

And they’d all live happily ever after. Get a clue, her reflection seemed to mock her from the mirror over the sink. As Gina gazed at herself, she had a sudden clear image of her face, swollen and bruised.

The way she’d looked for weeks after being raped and beaten. She’d tried to talk to her captors while she’d been held hostage on that air-plane. She’d thought she’d established a rapport with at least one of them. Brother, had she been wrong about that.

She hadn’t understood what they’d truly wanted—that death was their prize. That her death was a given, even while they talked and joked and laughed with her. That she was already dead in their eyes.

It was a miracle that she’d made it out of there alive. A miracle orchestrated by Max and his entire task force. A miracle he saw as a failure. His failure.

They have my wife, Emilio’s voice echoed.

Don’t believe him, her swollen, bruised image scoffed. Haven’t you learned anything?

But what if Emilio was telling the truth?

Open your eyes. Look around you. A windowless room. Locks on the outside of the door. This is not something that Emilio threw together for this particular occasion. What does he really want?

“What does he really want?” Max’s voice echoed. “Sometimes he doesn’t even know.”

There was only one gun. Two men, one gun. If there ever was a time to fight their way out, it was now.

Don’t forget the crowbar, her battered image reminded her. You’ve been hit with the butt of a rifle. Can you imagine being hit with a crowbar? Besides, they’ve treated you decently up to now. If you attack them, you open the door to violence. God knows what they’ll do to you. Although Crowbar Guy looked like he had a few ideas.

No, he did not. It was her fear that had imagined whatever salaciousness she was remembering now. Crowbar Guy’s face had been blank.

Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, her own face mocked her, with its nearly swollen-shut eye. So what are you going to do? Hit Emilio with the back cover to the toilet tank, smash his head in? Grab his gun, shoot Crowbar Guy... You’ve seen dead bodies, one of them quite recently, as a matter of fact. Are you really prepared to kill? Look at you. Your hands are shaking just thinking about it. Or maybe you won’t get the gun. Maybe you’ll miss his head, and he’ll have the gun, and he’ll shoot you instead. Maybe that’s what you really want, because then it’ll just be over. Maybe what you want is suicide-by-Emilio—

“No.” Gina stood up, turned on the faucet, rinsed her face with cold water.

She was a survivor, not a victim, and certainly not a quitter. She was going to survive this, too. She just had to figure out how.

“What does Emilio really want?” Max’s voice said again. “Sometimes he doesn’t even know. Sometimes he can’t admit it, even to himself...”

Gina grabbed a towel, drying her face. What did you really want? she would’ve asked him, if only he were truly standing in front of her. From me, I mean.

“What did you really want from me?” In a move that was typical Max, he would turn the question around on her.

Honesty, she’d tell him.

“Really.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Yes, really. I wanted you to talk to me. Really talk. You know, Max, all the years we’ve known each other, I can count on my fingers the times you told me about yourself—your childhood, for example. And even then? I had to drag it out of you.

Her imaginary Max smiled at her—the way he’d sometimes smile at her. As if he knew the punchline to some cosmic joke, and he was just waiting for her to catch up, catch on. “I am who I am—but apparently I’m not who you want me to be, am I?”

“Oh, blame me,” Gina said crossly now. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t it?” He gazed at her with that calm lack of expression. Amazing. Even when he was imaginary, he could infuriate her. But then he dropped the bomb. “You’re the one who left me.”

“What?” Gina said. “Oh, perfect. Go away. Of course you’re going to say that, because you’re not really you, you’re me.” She was just imagining him, so of course her overinflated sense of guilt would play into it.

Yes, she’d left him. Because he shut her out. She’d left him because there was only so long a rational person could continue battering her head against an unmoving wall. She’d left him because she’d wanted more.

Except now all she could think about were the conversations they’d had where she’d asked about Max’s family. His sister—plagued with depression, attempted suicide so often the sight of an ambulance in his driveway became almost commonplace. God, how awful must that have been to live with? His parents—always angry, always frightened, always fighting. His brilliant grandfather, a mentor and good friend—no longer able to communicate thanks to a devastating stroke. His best friend’s brother—dead in Vietnam. His own brother, his one remaining ally, closest to him in age, but never a good student—escaped into the army the minute he turned eighteen, leaving him in a house that was dark with despair.

As for Max? How had he coped? Certainly not merely by watching Elvis movies.

“I got straight As.”

She’d always thought it was a dodge, when he’d told her that. A comment that kept him from discussing his real feelings.

And yet... “You got straight As because your grades were one of the few things you were able to control, right?” she said to him now.

Imaginary Max gazed back at her impassively. “If that’s what you want to think...”

“You tried to be perfect,” she accused him. “But no one’s perfect. And even if you’re perfect, there are still things that you can’t control. So you fail, and when you do, it drives you nuts, and you beat yourself up and blame yourself—even though it’s not your fault.”

She was his biggest failure. His words. He’d helped save an entire planeful of people, but he’d failed to keep her safe from that vicious attack. He wouldn’t forgive himself for that.

It didn’t matter that he’d failed for reasons not under his control. It didn’t matter that, according to most people’s definitions, he hadn’t failed. Gina was alive—how could that be a failure?

It didn’t make sense.

But it didn’t have to. Because his reaction wasn’t logical.

It was pure, raw emotion.

Here she’d thought he was hiding his true feelings from her, but all this time, he had been waving them, right in her face.

And no wonder he’d fought his attraction to her for all those years.

Whether or not he was right was moot. It really only mattered what he thought, what he felt. And, according to him, every time he was in the same room as Gina, he had to face the emotional pain of that devastating failure. He had to face that horrible self-blame.

“I can’t give you what you want.” How many times had Max said those words to her?

What if he’d been right?

What if he couldn’t give her what she wanted, because she couldn’t give him what he’d wanted—a chance to let the pain of his perceived failings fade into the past.

“You left me,” he said now, again—her imaginary friend Max, still so accusatory.

“Yeah, but you didn’t come after me,” she told him. Told herself. Trying not to cry.

He hadn’t come then, and he wasn’t going to come now. A soft knock made her jump. “Are you all right in there?” Molly’s voice. She was finally awake.

Gina wiped her eyes then reached right through the place where Imaginary Max had been leaning and opened the bathroom door.

Molly was still pale, but she looked much better. At the very least, she was standing.

“Are you all right?” Gina asked her.

“Still a little shaky,” Molly admitted. “Do you mind if I take a shower?”

She was too polite to ask who Gina had been talking to. Not when it was obvious with a quick glance around the tiny bathroom that she was quite alone.

“Of course not.” Gina pulled their nearly dried clothes down from the bar that held the shower curtain. “Emilio—Gun Guy—brought canned food. After you shower, you need to eat something, and then we need to talk about getting out of here.”