Eleven seconds. He couldn’t bring himself to give up. And yet . . . continuing the free fall would be madness. He was still at least thirty feet away. Close enough that he could see the terror on Heat’s face, far enough that he knew he simply wasn’t going to make it in time.
Twelve seconds. They were nearing 99 percent of terminal velocity. Two hundred miles an hour. Hitting water at that speed would quickly lead to another kind of terminal.
And then, during the thirteenth second, Heat’s countenance changed. It went from fear to determination to . . . pain?
She had ripped one arm away from her restraints, dislocating her thumb and tearing a good chunk of skin off her hand in the process.
But it changed everything. The amount of surface area she was able to present doubled. The drag coefficient increased accordingly. The physics were suddenly on their side.
She slowed to perhaps one hundred fifty miles per hour. It was still fast, but not compared to Storm’s speed. He was suddenly falling a full seventy feet per second faster.
That meant it took Storm less than half a second to close the gap between them. They collided with a heavy thud, but it enabled Storm to koala bear hug her with two legs and two arms.
The timer in Storm’s head had just hit fourteen seconds.
“Pull the cord!” he yelled at Heat.
With her one free hand, she reached for his shoulder and yanked.
The drogue deployed smoothly, followed by the main chute. They were soon floating down toward the water at a leisurely ten miles an hour.
“Sorry to just drop in on you like that,” Storm said.
“You know, when you did that at my apartment the other day, I have to admit I was a little put out,” Heat said. “This time I don’t mind so much.”
THIRTY-FIVE
HEAT/STORM
ONE WEEK LATER
As experienced, decorated, high-level employees of two of America’s elite paramilitary organizations, Nikki Heat and Derrick Storm had been subjected to extreme duress on many occasions.
Physical agony. Psychological warfare. The threat of imminent death. They had been through that and more. In Heat’s case, it had happened in every borough. In Storm’s case, it had happened on every continent.
But nothing—either in their training or during the crucible test of live ops—had quite prepared them for this.
The uncertainty. The torment. The wait.
Interminable.
The hour had grown late. Dangerously late. And still, nothing. No contact.
“How much longer do you think?” Heat asked.
“At this point, there’s no telling,” Rook said.
“Try the phones again,” Storm said.
“We tried three times already,” Rook said. “Two rings, then voice mail, every time.”
“We have to be able to establish communications somehow,” Storm said. “Without that, we’re lost.”
“I’m afraid it’s hopeless,” Rook said.
They settled into an aggrieved silence. How had they gotten there? Where had they gone wrong? They were questions that had been asked—but not answered—many times already.
“Should we try the police?” Storm suggested.
“I am the police,” Heat reminded him.
“Should we try police who can actually do something?” Storm asked.
“Not at this point,” Rook said. “They’re not an option. We have to rely on our own resources.”
“Limited though they are,” Storm said.
More waiting. The hour grew even later. All seemed lost.
The previous week had been a hectic one. A compact disc containing evidence that Lindsy Gardner had accepted a fifty-million-dollar bribe from Chinese criminals had been given to the Offices of the US Attorneys. Heat had given them a counterfeit bill with Gardner’s fingerprints on it—the one she had managed to keep in her pocket, trusting that Lindsy Gardner had long forgotten she paid Cynthia Heat a hundred dollars every two weeks for piano lessons, not eighty.
Indictments had come quick and sure. The evidence was overwhelming. Gardner’s defense had been so inadequate a judge had refused to set a bond, given the defendant’s ability to flee.
The scorched body of a Chinese national, found in Gardner campaign headquarters, had only added to the confusion, though it appeared no charges could be brought from that. The bullets that killed him had been fired by a weapon belonging to a Secret Service agent, who had no memory of how he had wound up chained to a metal detector, separated from his service weapon.
The story had exploded across the media like a huge ratings-producing bomb. There had been much speculation—most of it wrong, as usual—though rumors had surfaced that Jameson Rook was set to release an article in First Press that would set the record straight. Another Pulitzer was surely in the offing.
None of which helped the situation at hand.
“This isn’t like them,” Heat said. And not for the first time.
“So irresponsible,” Storm confirmed.
“And so selfish,” Heat said.
“It’s like they aren’t even thinking about us at all,” Rook declared.
They waited some more. Finally, the door handle to Rook’s Tribeca loft turned downward, and the two outlaws entered.
“Oh,” Cynthia Heat said. “You shouldn’t have waited up.”
“Fer Chrissakes,” Carl Storm said.
Nikki stood with her hands on her hips.
“Where have you two been?” she asked.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Derrick asked.
“We were worried sick about you,” Rook said. “You could have been bleeding in a ditch somewhere. Or, worse, you could have been stuck watching reality TV.”
“There is going to be some serious punishment, young man. Serious,” Derrick said.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Nikki said.
Then Cynthia, her face aglow, thrust out her left hand. On her ring finger was a glittering 2.4-carat diamond ring.
The air momentarily left the room.
When it returned, Nikki gasped. “Oh, Mom,” was all she managed to say.
Derrick was looking at his father, unable to form the question that was on his mind. Carl sensed it all the same.
“Your mother and I used to joke that if one of us died, the other should be in proper mourning until the funeral,” Carl said. “Then, once the body was lowered into the ground, we should dry our tears, then look up to see who might be available.”
He laughed. “Just took me thirty years to dry my tears, is all.”
“We went to The Players Club first,” Cynthia said. “George got Carl’s drink order wrong three times, wouldn’t you know.”
“I decided not to drink the fourth version,” Carl said. “I worried at that point it might have been Drano.”
“Then,” Cynthia said, “he took me to the Empire State Building and told me he had a surprise waiting for me there. Well . . .”
“I decided if it was till death do us part, that isn’t as far away as it used to be,” Carl said. “I figured we’d better get to it.”
The two beamed at each other for a moment.
“Are we too old to ask for anyone’s blessing?” Cynthia asked.
“Oh, Mom,” Nikki said again, and squeezed her mother with enough force to almost knock the wind out of her.
Then Derrick hugged his dad twice as hard.
“There’s only one thing more beautiful than two young kids in love,” Rook declared. “And that’s two old kids in love.”
“Yeah, and speaking of kids,” Cynthia said, “when am I going to get a grandchild?”
“And speaking of mothers,” Rook said, “I think I hear mine calling me right now.”
But no. Not quite.
Instead, Rook opened a bottle of Krug Brut.
“I’ve been saving this for my third Pulitzer,” he said. “But this occasion is more than worthy of it.”
They toast
ed the Heat-Storm engagement. They toasted the new family that was forming. They toasted all the things they had to be thankful for.
Someone watching might have thought any group of people with that much to celebrate was coming to some long-awaited conclusion of a great chain of events—like a television show going through its series finale.
But, truly, this was not the end for Heat and Storm.
This was only the beginning.
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