o much for easy outs.

As Jones followed Molly up the dank, spider web–filled staircase and back into the house, he could just imagine the conversation between the overzealous soldiers and their superior officer.

“What part of ambush do you idiots not understand?”

“Sir, the door opened, sir! So we discharged our weapons, as ordered!”

“At which time the door was swiftly closed. And locked. No injuries, no dead, no prisoners.”

“Sir, yes sir! No dead on our side, as well, sir! Perhaps crisp new uniforms and ten minutes of training don’t make us real soldiers after all! Sir!”

Jones’s heart was still pounding. That could have been ugly. The troops must’ve moved into place while they were in the tunnel, which was quite a flaw in the design of Emilio’s security setup.

Of course, in a perfect world, surrounded by minions, a video screen at the door of the escape tunnel probably wasn’t necessary. Because in a perfect world, cell phones still worked. A quick call to Igor in the kitchen and they’d know whether or not they were good to go.

With neither phones nor Igor, Jones had opened the door ver-r-ry carefully.

Max had anticipated trouble. He’d carried a mop with him that he’d taken from the kitchen.

As they’d traveled down the tunnel, Jones had thought Max had brought it to lean on—that he was hurt worse than he’d let on. But then he used it to clear the tunnel of the spider webs, so Jones had figured it was possible the brilliant and powerful Max Bhagat was a baby when it came to creepy-crawlies.

Of course when they’d opened that door—hatch really—Jones had discovered Max’s real reason for bringing the mop.

He’d slowly stuck it out of the opening, like a head peering out from behind the hatch...

And it had been shot out of his hands.

The hatch was resealed.

They were safe.

Or trapped.

Depending on how you looked at it.

Of course, another no-win, no-way-out situation seemed almost no big deal to Jones. He was already smack in the middle of one with the pregnancy and cancer thing.

He hadn’t known what to say when Molly had told him she’d felt the baby move. She was always telling him to be honest, but he knew damn well that in this case she wouldn’t want to hear what he was thinking.

As in “Gee, and I was hoping all the trauma would trigger a miscarriage.”

But okay. Molly was also always selling positive thinking, and since Jones couldn’t manage honesty right now, he was trying hard to be optimistic to make up for it. Yes, they were safe here in Emilio’s cozy little fortress. True, they were down to Plan C, but—yay rah rah, go team—in their version of the alphabet, C stood for siege. As in, go ahead and shoot at us, mo-fo’s. Short of withstanding a direct attack with some serious artillery, they were assault-proof.

Their absent host had even done most of their prep work for them, bless his black heart.

Which meant, after they’d double-checked all the doors and windows making sure they were still secure, after they’d shut down the AC and sealed all the air vents—just say no to poison gas—and filled the bathtubs, sinks, and every available container with water, as long as they kept an eye on those security monitors and made sure they weren’t under attack...

They had a little extra time on their hands.

And that meant, after they’d both had a turn in that shower—thank you, Jesus—Max was finally ready to let Jones take a look at his so-called “it’s just a scratch” of a bullet wound.

As Jones scrubbed up in the kitchen—how long had it been since he’d done that?—Molly and Gina helped by washing down the banquet-sized table. They also had water boiling, to sterilize the collection of knives and other kitchen utensils that he was going to need to de-bullet Max.

Eventually the generator—which they’d found housed down in the tunnel—would run out of gas. Until it did, they’d conserve.

They’d found a first-aid kit, but it was barely the size of a school lunch box, and the supplies inside had been mostly depleted. There were still several adhesive bandages, designed to take the place of stitches. Which was good because instead of surgical silk, someone had tossed in one of those mini sewing kits that were given out at fancy hotels.

The lack of real surgical thread worried him less than the absence of antibiotics. In this climate, with a bullet in his butt that had passed through his grimy jeans, there was a serious danger that Max would suffer from infection.

Emilio had spent a million dollars on security cameras, but apparently he couldn’t throw a few extra bucks toward a more realistic supply of medi-cal basics.

Go figure.

Clad in a white bathrobe that he’d already bled through, but looking more like his old self, thanks to a disposable razor he’d found in the bathroom, Max now searched the kitchen for Emilio’s liquor cabinet.

“If you can’t find anything,” Jones told him, “sugar’s a decent substitute. I’m assuming your intention is antibiotic rather than anesthetic.”

Max didn’t bother to answer. Stupid question. “After we’re done here,” he said instead, “we should do an inventory—go through every cabinet, every closet. See if we can’t find a shortwave radio.”

“That’s a good idea,” Molly said.

“I can’t believe that all that time we were in Kenya, you never once helped out in the hospital tent.” Gina’s words were such a non sequitor, that it took Jones a second to realize she was talking to him. Not just talking to him—bitching at him.

He closed his mouth over the “What the hell is your problem?” that had almost escaped.

Because he knew what her problem was. She was scared to death that Max was hurt worse than he was letting on. Plus she and Max had had an exchange of words, as Molly so politely called it, just a short time ago.

Jones didn’t take Gina’s less-than-sunny attitude personally. He knew she was also scared for Jules Cassidy—whom Max had described as being “in trouble.”

Enough with the euphemisms. Max had been shot, he and Gina had had a rip-roaring fight, and Jules was surely dead.

Jules’s “troubles” had reached an end. Help still might be on its way, but it wouldn’t be coming from him.

No, if they wanted to be rescued, they were going to have to wait however long it took for someone in the Jakarta CIA office to realize that Jules and Max had fallen off the edge of the earth.

Which would probably be a while. The U.S. Government had a few other things on their plate this week.

And, it was entirely possible that no one would ever come.

Withstanding a siege was only possible with limitless food and water. Eventually their supply would run out.

And when it did, they would be forced to go to Plan D. D for death. As in his.

Okay, now he was working the honesty angle, but it was pretty bleak. He couldn’t seem to do both honesty and positive thinking at the same time.

“He couldn’t work in our camp clinic.” Molly was defending Jones to Gina. “He didn’t want anyone to know that he had medical experience. He couldn’t risk someone connecting Leslie Pollard to either Dave Jones or Grady Morant.”

Gina turned to him. “So are you a real doctor, or...?” She made a face that was part shrug, part disgusted curiosity, and pure New Yorker. Scared to death and trying to hide it by being pissed off. New Yorkers were taught from infancy never to show any fear.

“I was a medic in the Army.” Among other things. “I was trained to treat battle-related injuries—gunshot wounds are right up my alley.”

“But don’t medics just patch people up until they can get to a real hospital?” Gina’s worry was showing.

“He spent two years running a hospital for Chai.” Molly put her arm around the younger woman. “Which was the equivalent of working the ER in a city like New York or Chicago. He saved a lot of lives.” She made sure Max was paying attention, too. “And before you say, ‘Yeah, of drug runners, killers, and thieves,’ you should also know that his patients were just regular people who worked for Chai because he was the only steady employer in the area. Or because they knew they’d end up in some mass grave if they refused his offer of employment. Before Grady came in, if they were injured in some battle with a rival gang, they were just left for dead.”

Jones looked up to find Max watching him as he sterilized a particularly sharp knife. “Me and Jesus,” he said. “So much alike, people often get us confused.”

“Mock me all you want—I’m just saying.” Molly had on her Hurt Feelings face. It may have fooled Max, but Jones knew it was only there to mask her Relentless Crusader. She was lobbying hard for Max to be on Jones’s side if they made it out of here alive. And she wasn’t done. “Yes, Grady Morant worked for Chai for a few years—after the U.S. left him to die in some torture chamber. He’s so evil, except what was he doing during those two years? Oh, he was saving lives...?”

“I was practicing medicine without a license,” Jones pointed out. “You just gave Max something else to charge me with when we get home.”

When, not if. Even though he wasn’t convinced that they weren’t in if territory, he’d used the word on purpose. The look Molly shot him was filled with gratitude.

He gave her a smoldering blast of his best “Yeah, you can thank me later in private, baby” look, and, as he’d hoped she would, she laughed.

Max, meanwhile, had uncovered a bottle of rum. 151 proof. Yee-hah.

“Let’s do this,” he said, then turned to Gina.

“I’m not leaving,” Gina told him before he could ask her to do just that. “In case you were thinking of cheering me on.”

Gina was obviously referencing their earlier argument, and sure enough, Max closed his eyes as he sighed. “I’m sorry for losing my temper before.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m sorry I left you. I thought...” She laughed her disgust as she shook her head. “I was wrong. I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have let you chase me away just because you were scared.”

“Hail, Gina,” Jones said. “Queen of the perfect timing.”

“What?” she said. “I’m supposed to wait to say this? Until when? Until we have some privacy—oh, except for the platoons of soldiers outside, some of whom have high-tech listening devices?”

“Maybe they don’t,” Jones said. “In this part of the world, there’s not so much of the high-tech—”

Gina didn’t care. “That’s what you did, isn’t it?” she asked Max. “Chased me away?”

“Can you at least let my patient get on the table,” Jones said, “before you grill him?”

“Please,” Gina said with a grand gesture, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to slow down the process.”

Max gave it one last try. “I’d rather you weren’t in h—”

“No.”

Max glanced at Molly.

“I’ll catch her if she gets woozy,” she assured him.

He just shook his head, no doubt recognizing that if there ever were a time to surrender, it was right now.

At least it was here, in their makeshift operating room. Dealing with the army that was gathering out on the street was a different story.

Max climbed onto the table and settled himself face down, head on his folded arms.

Jones lifted the edge of the bathrobe and...

“Oh my God,” Gina breathed.

That was no mere scratch. That bullet was going to hurt coming out. And then he had to clean the wound.

“Oh my God, is right,” Molly said, admiration in her voice. “Nice butt, Bhagat.”

“Hey,” Jones said, mostly because he knew she expected him to. As usual, the woman who probably had cancer was working to keep things upbeat.

Sure enough, she looked at him wearing her “What?” face, a picture of pure G-rated Sunday School innocence as she told Gina, “His wound really is very superficial. I mean, yeah, he’s going to have a cute little scar...” She turned to Jones. “You have a very nice butt, too, honey.”

“Oh my God,” Gina said again, more faintly and Jones quickly looked over at her. She was living up to the reputation she’d gotten back in Kenya. Get an extra bed ready for Vitagliano, Sister Double-M would mutter when Gina came into the hospital tent to help. Right now she was green.

“Mol...” he warned.

“Yup, I’ve got her.”

“Gina, come here and hold my hand,” Max said through gritted teeth, as Molly pushed her into a chair, pushed her head down between her legs. “Jones, will you please goddamn tell her that I’m going to be fine?”

“Gina, he’s going to be fine,” Jones repeated. He kept the second half of that sentence to himself: Provided that army outside didn’t get hold of some demolitions experts and figure out a way to blow a hole in Emilio’s assault-proof castle.

Jules heard voices.

It was possible that they were good voices—the real kind, not the kind that were in his head that urged him to close his eyes just for a moment, to surrender, just for a short time, to the darkness.

He’d found it worked best to talk back to them—the inside-his-head voices. “We all know if I close my eyes, it’s over.”

Wouldn’t it be nice for it just to be over? It’s called eternal peace for a reason...

“Shut up, shut up. Shut up, shut up.” He used it as a mantra. Or maybe it was more like a marching cadence. Right elbow out on the first Shut up, digging in, pulling him forward on the next. He mixed it up occasionally with the longer version. “Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up...”

But now the voices he heard were coming from an external source. Unless, of course, the inside-his-head voices’ powers were growing stronger, combining forces with the double vision and the relentless pain. Unless they were now able to make him hallucinate.

In which case he was screwed.

Okay, that was so not Jules.

That was one of the voices, pretending to be him. He was not screwed. He refused to be screwed. He would just keep on ignoring them.

Because eternal peace sounded way too boring. He didn’t want to be eternally peaceful. He wanted to be eternally on vacation in Provincetown with the man of his dreams. He wanted to be eternally loved, married even—with two kids and a dog.

That was just a myth, that kind of love. What he really wanted was to be eternally laid.

“Shut up,” Jules said as he kept crawling, the sun now hot on the back of his head. “It is not a myth. And eternally loved comes with the bonus of being eternally laid.”

Yeah, right. He didn’t really believe that, did he?

“Stephen found it. Shit, I was going to tell Gina about Stephen, about going over to his place...”

After he’d gotten home from a recent trip to Los Angeles, Jules had finally gotten up the nerve to go over to Stephen-the-fabulous-but-no-longer-new-neighbor’s apartment and ring the doorbell.

“I was going to ask him out to dinner,” Jules said. “You know, on a date? Like, ‘Hey, how’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in a while. I was wondering if you were free tonight...’ ”

Except Stephen hadn’t answered the door. Brian had. Brian the cop, who looked like a weird musclebound knockoff of Jules. Compact, cute, dark hair, brown eyes. Funny and friendly. And clearly head over heels in love with Stephen, who was so happy, too, that he glowed.

“So I stayed and had dinner with both of them,” Jules told Gina, except wait. She wasn’t there with him.

Regardless, she’d been right about Stephen. He was perfect.

It could have been Jules instead of Brian, packing to move up to Massachusetts to get married.

“I meant, he’s perfect for Brian,” Jules told the voices.

Jeez, it was hot. Why was he suddenly so freaking hot?

And why were the voices suddenly shouting at him, in a language he couldn’t understand?

There were lots of them, talking all at once, talking to each other—which was a pretty powerful parlor trick, since the voices were part of him. They were his dark side, true, but since when had his dark side gone and enrolled in a Berlitz class without his light side knowing about it?

“Hey,” Jules said to them, “if you don’t speak English, I’m just going to keep on ignoring you.”

But whoa, his voices suddenly had feet. Lots of them. Both bare and clad, in worn boots and sandals.

Feet and legs and... Jules tried to look up, but the sun was too bright.

One of the voices leaned down, turning from a shadowy shape into a blurred, doubled face. Asian—dark hair, dark eyes, killer cheekbones, Fu-Manchu mustache around a mouth that spoke. “Sorry about your shirt.” But like a badly dubbed movie, his mouth kept on moving.

“Okay,” Jules said. “You’re definitely not real.”

Another face—faces—appeared. “Steer clear of that mean Peggy Ryan.”

“Not funny,” Jules said. This was very, very not funny. That was what Robin, whom he’d cared very much about, had said to Jules the last time they were together—instead of good-bye. “Go away!”

The first face was back. “I hope we can be friends again some day.”

Enough was enough. “Get the fuck away from me!” Jules shouted, and they all backed off. He reached for his weapon, fumbling to pull it free from inside that oven of a leather jacket.

And one of the feet came toward him, like his head was a soccer ball. He couldn’t move, but so what. A hallucination couldn’t hurt him—

Crunch.

Jules both heard and felt the connection, felt himself flung back, his body following his head. Which was probably a good thing.

New pain blended with old. Stars sparked and faded. But before the grayness turned to black, Fu-Manchu came back into view, leaning close. “Goal!” he said, like the TV announcer of an international soccer game.

Jules fought to speak. “American,” he managed. Embassy, he tried to say, too. In Dili. But the world went black.

“This might hurt,” Jones announced.

Might hurt? Might?

Forget about the implication that everything that had come before this hadn’t hurt.

Max had his eyes closed, teeth clenched, sweat pouring off him.

Jesus H. Christ.

“On three,” Jones said. “Ready? One, two—”

“Hold up.” Gina’s voice. Softer now, but close to his ear. “Max, it’s really all right if you scream.”

“No, it’s not,” he ground out.

“Yes, it is. And open your eyes. I read somewhere that it hurts less if you open your eyes. With your eyes closed, you focus on the pain and—”

Max opened his eyes. Gina was right there—her eyes, her face. She was looking a little pale, sitting in the chair that Molly had dragged over, holding both of his hands in hers.

“I don’t need to scream,” he told her.

“I made a bet with myself,” she said, “that you wouldn’t. Don’t let me win.”

What?

He tried to loosen his grip on her hands. He was squeezing her too tightly, but she wouldn’t let him go.

He’d survived a lot in his life, and the past five minutes had been particularly hellacious. Still it was nothing—nothing—like the past few days.

“Three,” he told Jones. “Just do it.”

Mother of God! Max closed his eyes—he couldn’t help it.

“Open your eyes,” Gina urged him. “Come on, Max, scream.”

“Come on, Max,” Molly chimed in from somewhere down near the source of that pain. “We’ll all scream with you.”

“Don’t want... to scare you. Ah, God, Gina...”

“No.” Gina’s voice shook. “You don’t want to scare you. You don’t scare me. Haven’t you figured that out yet? You don’t scare me at all.”

“Almost done,” Jones announced as the pain let up a bit.

Of course, then it was back, worse than ever.

“God,” Max gasped again.

“You know, you were the best friend I ever had, too,” Gina told him.

Still past tense. He opened his eyes and there she was. She had a scratch across her cheek that marred the smooth perfection of her skin, probably from their asinine flail through the jungle. It was mostly a welt—slightly pink and raised—although up this close, he could see several tiny beads of blood where the branch that had whacked her had broken the skin.

And even though she was fighting it, tears made her eyes luminous. One of them escaped and slid down her cheek.

Life—wonderful, abundant life. She was so filled with it, so beautifully alive, it was seeping from her.

It slipped through her lips as well.

“Although, I probably would’ve used different words,” she told him. “More like the love of my life.”

Maybe his confusion had something to do with the goddamn fire in his butt, but he had to ask because her tense wasn’t clear. “Were?” he ground out. “Or are?”

Gina held his gaze with that same determination that had so impressed him the very first time he’d talked to her, over the radio of a hijacked airliner. “What do you care?” she asked. “Didn’t you purposely not call and tell me that Ajay died so that I would leave you?”

“Almost done,” Jones said again.

“Don’t fucking say that unless it’s true!” It was more of a howl than a scream, and yes, Gina was right. It scared the hell out of him.

“I played right into your hand,” Gina told him. “Didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Max said through gritted teeth. “Yes, all right? I’m a selfish asshole—I told you that right from the start!”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” She was pissed. “That you’re selfish? Is that easier to handle than the truth—that you’re scared?”

“Goddamn it!”

“What would’ve happened, Max, if you’d let me in? What would’ve happened, if you’d given yourself permission not just to grieve for Ajay, but to share what you were feeling with me?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he told her. “Jesus, Gina. Jones, what the fuck...?”

“Almost done.”

“God...” Now he wanted to howl, but he fought it, and the words came out little more than gasps. “Damn...”

“Why are you so afraid to let yourself be human?” Gina asked. “That’s why I love you, you know.”

Present tense. Jesus, Jesus, present tense!

She didn’t take so much as a breath as she kept going. “Because even though you try to hide it, I can see you in there. You’re not perfect—no one’s perfect. Shoot, Max, don’t you know? I don’t want perfect. I want you. I want the little boy who watched Elvis movies with his grandfather. I want the man who put his fist through the wall because he couldn’t stop some bad people from hurting me. But you know what? I even want the man who makes himself so... cold and, and... distant, who blames himself for all of his so-called failures. I just wish you’d realize that human beings learn from failure. We learn and we grow and we let our mistakes go, because we know we’ll do it differently the next time. If we’re lucky enough to be given a next time.”

Still holding his hands, she wiped her cheeks on the sleeves of her T-shirt, then added, “Are. To answer your question directly. You are the love of my life. And guess what? I’ve learned. If you can forgive me for quitting on you, if you can give us a second chance, I will not let you scare me away again.”

Jesus.

“Got it,” Jones said triumphantly. “Sorry, there was this one little piece of shit or fabric or something, but I finally got it. Ready for a little 151 cleansing action?”

“Yeah,” Max rasped. Are. Present tense. If he could forgive her? Yet Gina was serious.

And, yes, he was ready for damn near anything now.

As Jones poured high octane rum onto his bullet wound, Max opened his mouth and roared. “Jee-zus Jee-zus Jee-zus!”

Just as they’d promised, Gina and Molly shouted and screamed right along with him, although Gina might’ve been laughing. It was a little hard to tell—she exploded into tears.

There was so much noise—even Jones was howling—they almost didn’t hear it.

A voice. Over a megaphone. “Grady Morant.”

Molly was the last to hear it, and both Gina and Jones hushed her.

“Grady Morant,” it came again.

“Oh, God,” Gina breathed as Max finally released her hands.

Jones quickly bandaged Max’s wound, and moved to the sink to wash his hands. Max pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. “Has anyone seen my pants?”

“They’re soaking wet,” Molly informed him. “I tried to get the bloodstains out, but...”

“I’ll get you something else.” Gina vanished.

“Grady Morant, you are completely surrounded,” the megaphone voice continued. “Surrender peacefully for the sake of your companions. Surrender peacefully, and no one will get hurt.”