Headed for Trouble

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Time seemed to hang as Robin worked his way through a long list of what-if scenarios. What if Sam didn’t come back? What if he came back shouting Run! Run! What if, while he was gone, someone discovered them, crouching there? What if Ash or Mikey or Emma started to cry? What if Gina passed out—she was looking pretty pale. What if Robin passed out—but he couldn’t pass out. He wouldn’t. He had to be ready in case Sam came bursting out of that basement, telling them to run.

  But then, thank God, Sam appeared in the doorway. He reached his arms out, gesturing for Robin to give him Emma. Gina and Mikey went in next, then Robin passed Ash in to Sam, so that he could muscle the door back into place behind them.

  It was dark in there, but Sam used his cell phone as a flashlight, the light from its screen bright enough so Robin could see the rough-hewn walls and the dirt floor, the ancient pipes overhead.

  Like most basements around the world, it was cluttered with cast-off and long-forgotten junk. A half a bicycle, a semi-truck tire, a broken cricket bat, a pile of ancient and dust-covered empty bottles, a set of broken and rusty gardening tools, and a whole lot of less easily identifiable trash.

  There wasn’t much there they could make use of, at least not that Robin could see.

  Sam, however, seemed fascinated by what looked like an ancient circuit breaker box in the corner across from a long-cold coal burner—no doubt about it, this place now featured only cold-water flats.

  Robin’s stomach churned and burbled, and he dug for his own phone to use it to light his way to the far corner of the room, stopping to grab a rusting shovel. But right before he turned away, he realized what it was that Sam was looking at.

  Those were telephone wires coming into the building—wires that led up through the walls to the various apartments above them.

  And as Robin quickly dug a shallow hole in which to place his continuing misery, so to speak, he realized that rescue—via a quick phone call to Troubleshooters Incorporated—was close at hand.

  Sure, they were going to have to break into one of the apartments and either use the phone or steal a phone. But that seemed simple enough compared to what they’d already done and where they’d been and—

  “Holy fah … leh-lah, leh-lah,” Sam said.

  “What’s wrong?” Gina asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s good, in fact, it’s great.” He laughed. “Someone in the building has a nonsecure wireless network. I don’t have phone service, that’s still down, but I can use my phone to access the Internet through this open wireless system, and send an e-mail.”

  “I’ll dictate,” Robin said, using the shovel to cover up his deposit before he used his cell phone to light his way back to the others. “Dear Dave and/or Decker, Please come and get us ASAP. Love, Sam. P.S. Don’t kiss us on the mouth when you greet us because we are fah … leh-lah contagious.”

  “I’m paraphrasing,” Sam said dryly. “With luck, they’re already looking for us and … Yeah, Dave was definitely standing by and thank you sweet baby Jesus. The SEALs have retaken the airport. And the embassy. We’re safe, but Dave recommends we stay put, out of sight, until they can send someone out here to pick us up.”

  “Is there any way we can get a message to Max?” Gina asked, her arms tightly around Mikey and Emma. “He and Alyssa and Jules must be going crazy, worrying about us.”

  “I’m on it,” Sam said, his thumbs flying across his phone’s keyboard. He’d put Ash into his frontpack, but after he sent the e-mail, he gave the baby a hug. “You are such a good boy,” he told his son.

  Who mewed once and then vomited down Sam’s shirt and jeans.

  “Robin,” Sam said quietly.

  “I’m right here,” Robin said. “I’ll take him.”

  “Thank you.”

  He took the baby, and Sam took the shovel. And ran.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” Robin said, as Ash started to cry. “You’re okay, Big Guy. It’s four a.m. You’re right on schedule. Mikey’s next.”

  “I’m pretty sure Mike had it first,” Gina told him. “I thought it was just normal baby spitup, but in hindsight …”

  “Really?” Robin said, using a piece of one of the sheets to clean off Ash. “Yay.”

  Chapter Ten

  Greek Isles

  Jules found Robin sleeping on the beach, beneath an umbrella. “Hey. babe.”

  Robin sat up so fast he almost fell out of his lounge chair. “Oh, my God! You’re here!”

  “Yeah, we caught an earlier flight.” Jules laughed as Robin enveloped him in a hug and kissed the bejesus out of him.

  God, yes, this was exactly what he’d needed …

  But then Robin pulled back to look at him. “Two weeks earlier?” he asked.

  “The assignment took less time than we’d originally thought.”

  Robin ran his hand self-consciously across the dark stubble that covered his head. “I thought I’d have more time to, you know, grow this out.”

  “It’s actually adorable. And amazing,” Jules said, “and it makes it kind of impossible to ignore what happened to you, and Gina, and Sam and the kids—God, when we heard, we were sick, we were so worried.”

  “No, actually, we were sick,” Robin quipped.

  But Jules wasn’t ready to laugh. “What a nightmare and Jesus, all I could think was this kind of worrying is what I put you through, this is what I willingly do to you, every time I go out there and put myself in danger.”

  “No, babe,” Robin said, pulling him close and enveloping him in his arms. “No, that’s just not true. I mean, yeah, it can be scary, but I know—I know, in fact, I’ve just had the ultimate reminder that you can take care of yourself. I mean, I knew that, I did, but now I really know that you’re super-safe, as safe as you can possibly be, especially when someone like Sam or Alyssa or Max is by your side. Watching Sam deal with everything and anything that got thrown at us …? He knew exactly what to do, where to go, how to handle it.”

  “He told Alyssa he couldn’t have done it without your help,” Jules said, gazing searchingly into Robin’s brilliant blue eyes.

  Robin smiled and shook his head. “That’s just more of Sam being Sam,” he said as he held out his hand so that he and Jules could intertwine their fingers as they walked back to the resort. “If he’d had to, he would’ve figured out a way to carry both me and Gina and all three kids.”

  Jules laughed, because he knew it was true. “The whole stomach flu thing must’ve killed him. Sympathy vomiter and all.”

  “He was hurting,” Robin agreed. “And yet he won a knife fight. Won in a major way, like, after it was over, he was in possession of the knife and he wasn’t the unconscious one.”

  “That’s our Sam,” Jules said. “How many stitches?”

  “Ten,” Robin reported. “Although I had no clue he was hurt, let alone that he needed stitches, until we were in Germany.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Jules. “Did you need any stitches in the past week and a half?”

  Jules shook his head. “Nope. But I caught Mikey’s flu.”

  Robin laughed. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yeah. Max did, too. We passed it along to pretty much all of the FOB. And the CO of SEAL Team Sixteen,” Jules reported. “He was really happy about that. Alyssa’s got it now. She was feeling funky on the plane, and soon as we took off …” He made a face as he shook his head.

  “Ah, God,” Robin said. “So she’s just at the beginning of it. Poor Sam.”

  “He’s Sam,” Jules said. “He’ll deal.” He smiled at Robin. “But we’re here, and we’ll definitely help.”

  FAQs Answered: Interview with Suz

  The following is compiled from a series of online interviews. My thanks to all who posed such interesting questions.

  Q: You began your career as a romance writer, but now your books are labeled romantic suspense or romantic military action/adventures. Does this influence what you write?

  SUZ: No, it doesn’t. But I have to adm
it that I’ve used labels like those—and even the broader label of “romance novel”—to “get away” with writing exactly what I want to write.

  I think labels are something that publishers, booksellers, and even readers use to help them organize the purchase and sales and selection of books. What’s this book about? Well, it’s about this man who comes to believe that terrorists targeted his ex-wife and daughter. Oh, so it’s a thriller. Well, yeah, sort of. Except there’s more. Our hero comes face-to-face with a woman he’s had a couple of brief but intense affairs with in the past, and as they spend time together, they’re finally able to begin to build a real relationship. Oh, so it’s a romance. Well, yeah, sort of, except there’s more. An awful lot of time is spent on the hero’s childhood and …

  And so on.

  You know, the first book in my Troubleshooters series, The Unsung Hero, is really a novel about Charles Ashton, an eightysomething World War II veteran with terminal cancer. This character’s story, both his adventures as a downed pilot in Nazi-occupied France and his contemporary struggles with his own impending demise, is the soul of this book.

  And yet there’s enough going on in the book so that it is a romance. And a military action/adventure.

  And there’s a sweet secondary romance between two teenagers. And … it’s a lot of things, all in one book.

  I could give you a log line for The Unsung Hero: “A Navy SEAL commander recovering from a near-fatal head injury spots a terrorist in his sleepy New England hometown.”

  Where’s the romance? Where’s eighty-year-old Charles? Well, they’re in there—they’re the heart and soul of this book that’s most easily labeled a romantic suspense!

  Q: What comes to you first, character or story?

  SUZ: For me, it’s almost always character that comes first. I spend a lot of time writing books with recurring characters—people whose personalities have been solidly established in previous books. I often move former secondary characters into main character roles and devise their story by asking the question, “What type of conflict or situation would push these particular characters beyond their personal edge? How can I make them really suffer?” Because really, the best stories deal with characters who must face their personal vulnerabilities.

  Here’s an example of what I mean. Say you had a hero who was a mountain climber. You could create a plot that involved him scaling a cliff to save a stranded child. You could throw in an impending thunderstorm—no, make it a hailstorm with high winds. He’s got to get up there and rescue that child—no, make her a toddler, trapped with her father who had a heart attack right there on the trail. That could be sort of exciting, right?

  Well, no. Because the hero’s a mountain climber. It’s no big deal for him to scale that cliff. He’ll probably yawn while he’s doing it.

  And the reader will yawn, too.

  But what if the hero isn’t a mountain climber? What if he’s the opposite of a mountain climber—what if he’s terrified of heights? I’m talking Jimmy Stewart–level vertigo à la the Hitchcock movie of that very name.

  Toss this hero into that scenario I sketched out above, and no one’s yawning now! When this hero rescues that child, he’s not just climbing a cliff, he’s facing his demons.

  So what I do when I plot my books is figure out who my hero is going to be, what his vulnerabilities are, and what type of situation I can throw him into, to make him really suffer! The same rule applies, of course, to my heroines.

  Q: Sam and Alyssa are probably your most popular couple. Where did the idea come from, to stretch their story out over five books?

  SUZ: When I outlined Sam and Alyssa’s story arc, my intention was to present a traditional romance backstory in “real time.”

  It’s fairly typical to find a book in which the hero and heroine have had a romantic and/or sexual encounter in the past, and have, after that encounter, gone in two different directions. But in the actual book, these two characters come face-to-face again, and are forced to work together and deal with their history, as well as any feelings that are still in play.

  With Sam and Alyssa, I wanted to bring my readers along for a ride, having what would typically be that backstory play out over the course of six or seven books, as subplots.

  For example, in The Unsung Hero, I introduced the two and even though they are minor secondary characters, it’s clear that they are throwing sparks and clashing.

  In the next book, The Defiant Hero, there is a major romantic subplot in which these two characters again clash in a hate/love relationship that explodes, with the help of overindulgence in alcohol, in a one-night stand. Neither character is mature enough to deal with a real relationship, and the morning after is filled with regrets and additional mistakes. At the end of the book, they decide to pretend that night never happened, and go about their separate lives.

  The third book, Over the Edge, takes place six months later, and the two characters again meet and are forced to work together. Again they clash and spark, and there’s another one-night stand. But this time, both are a little bit older and wiser, and they realize there could be something more between them. But the book ends with an external conflict—a girlfriend Sam dated during those six months he and Alyssa spent apart is pregnant and he feels he must “do the right thing” and marry her—that sends the pair in separate directions.

  The fourth book, Out of Control, has more of a minor subplot from Alyssa’s point of view, in which she is attempting to get on with her life. Sam, meanwhile, is trying to make his loveless marriage work for the sake of his new baby.

  The fifth book, Into the Night, shows Sam trying to make the best of his marriage to a woman he doesn’t love, and who truly doesn’t love him. In this book, Sam comes to the realization that marriage without love is not “the right thing.”

  And the sixth book, Gone Too Far, is Sam and Alyssa’s story. Again, they’re thrown together. Sam is single again. Both are even older and wiser, and prove through their journey in the book that they have earned the right to a happy ending—which they achieve at the end of the story.

  I outlined Sam and Alyssa’s story arc way back after I wrote The Unsung Hero. I suspected that telling Sam and Alyssa’s story in this manner, in an arc that spread across so many books, would be compelling.

  Keep in mind that, up to Gone Too Far, Sam and Alyssa’s story was told as a subplot in addition to the main plot/main romance of each book. At the time, this was something different from a traditional romance—writing a romantic subplot that ended unhappily or without absolute closure at the book’s end. Readers were drawn to this, as I’d hoped!

  Q: Were you surprised at the response to Sam and Alyssa’s story arc?

  SUZ: It was my hope that I’d create a stir with Sam and Alyssa. I’d hoped that people would connect to them—I actually had no idea, though, just how strong that connection would be.

  The biggest shock—to me—came when quite a few readers assumed that Sam and Alyssa’s story ended with Over the Edge. Because in my mind it was so clear that their story was far from over.

  Q: Which character in the Troubleshooters books (aside from Sam or Alyssa) is the most popular?

  SUZ: That would be Jules Cassidy. When I go on book tours, I do a Q&A session at nearly every signing. And one of the first questions asked—it doesn’t matter where we are—is “Will we be seeing more of Jules in future books?”

  Q: You’ve been accused of “waving your rainbow flag” in Hot Target. Care to comment?

  SUZ: I happen to disagree. Yes, this book features Jules Cassidy, who is gay. Yes, this book features other characters who are gay. Yes, this book goes into those characters’ backstories (their childhoods, their histories) in some detail—just as I do for all my characters in this book and in every other book I’ve ever written. And yes, the backstories for these gay characters deal with their coming out—which (as is the case for all gay people) required enormous courage.

  I believe strongly that my books ar
e entertainment. I hope you might learn a thing or two while reading them, but first and foremost, my job is to entertain you.

  If I’m waving a flag in Hot Target, it’s the same flag I’ve always waved in all my books—the American flag. And that’s a flag that’s supposed to stand for acceptance and understanding. For freedom for all—and not just freedom for all Americans, but freedom for all of the diverse and wonderful people living on this planet; freedom to live their lives according to their definitions of freedom. It’s a flag that’s supposed to stand for real American values like honor and honesty and peace and love and hope.

  Q: Readers enjoy the diversity of the characters in your books. Jules is gay, Alyssa is African American, Lindsey is Asian American, Max’s grandfather came from India … How hard is it to write those characters?

  SUZ: Not hard at all.

  Here’s the deal: The world I live in, a fairly urban, blue-collar-ish suburb of Boston, is ethnically diverse. I chose to live here, on a busy street with buses running past my house, and neighbors and friends of all different colors, shapes, orientations, and sizes, because I love diversity. I believe it’s what makes America great. (I believe that differences of opinion, too, are so important to a true democracy.)

  I love meeting people who, on the surface, appear to be different from me. But it never takes long for me to recognize that our similarities far outweigh those superficial differences. Bottom line: people are people. We all tend to want the same big things—love, security, adventure, success, peace of mind.

  And yet at the same time, people are individuals. It’s important to see people as individuals, without being burdened by the labels and definitions that our society imposes upon them. (Upon us!) Sure, you can define individuals by the color of their skin: a black man, a white woman. Or you can define them by their religion: a Muslim woman, a Jewish man, a Wiccan woman. There are dozens of labels we throw onto people all the time: gay, straight, bi. Democrat, Republican, Independent. New Yorker, Midwesterner, Texan.