“If you are, please talk to me before you make any decisions,” he said. “I deserve at least, you know, to know.”
Her face was devoid of all expression, all the light and life of the woman he’d laughed with and made love to last night completely suppressed.
“All right,” she conceded. “If I don’t email you, I’ll call you. But I’m not going to have to call you.”
She was, however, going to have to follow him, today and the next day and the next . . . Because she thought he knew where Nils was.
And Sam knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand it. Having Alyssa continue to follow him for the next few days was going to drive him completely mad. He didn’t want to have to see her, to think about her.
To ache for her.
“I don’t know where Nils is,” he told her as she unlocked the trunk of her car. “Really.”
And there was her fanny pack. Aqua. As he watched, she unzipped it and pulled out a heavy ring of keys.
And then, with a click, they were free.
She pulled on her jacket despite the heat of the day.
“I did know for a while, right after he left,” Sam contin-ued. “You were right about that.” He told her about WildCard’s tracking device. “I’m positive Nils caught up with Meg within twelve hours of her being gone. But he hasn’t called—at least not me. I seriously doubt Meg killed him, so I’ve been going on the assumption that they’re still together. In fact, I’ve been expecting Nils to turn up with Meg in tow any minute now, ready to surrender Razeen to the FBI.”
Alyssa was silent, just listening to him.
“Nils has a real thing for this woman,” he explained awkwardly. “I think he, you know, maybe even loves her. He’ll bring her in. Just give him a little more time.”
She nodded, rubbing her wrist. “Will you call me if he contacts you?”
“Yes, I will.” Was he lying? He didn’t really know. Had she been lying when she’d told him she’d call him if she were pregnant? Probably. God damn it. He wanted to cry. There was nothing left to do but walk away from her now. “So now you can stop following me, all right? I think it would be best for both of us if you didn’t follow me anymore.”
She nodded again and got into her car.
That was it. No good-bye. No thanks, it was fun. No see you later.
Because she didn’t want to see him later. She didn’t want to see him ever again. Not even if she were carrying his baby.
Sam watched her pull out of the parking spot, watched her drive toward the exit.
He savagely kicked one of the enormous concrete pillars that held up the parking garage, but even the pain in his foot didn’t take away the pain that was in his heart.
“Damn it!” Meg said. “Damn you for following me!”
“Pull in here,” Nils ordered her, and she took a hard right turn into the massive parking lot of a resort hotel near Disney World.
The van hadn’t followed them.
Meg had hit it so hard, the front axle had broken. Nils had looked back to see the front left wheel listing at an odd angle. Those assholes weren’t going anywhere—not in that van. And being amateurs, they hadn’t brought a backup vehicle.
Still, he’d had Meg keep driving. They’d gotten on and off the highway until Nils was convinced no one was following them. No doubt they were too busy running for cover after tossing off that shot. The police were probably on the way after that genius move. Nils could only pray that the Extremists didn’t have anyone watching the place. If they did, Amy and Eve wouldn’t be kept alive much longer.
Meg came to a stop with a jerk of the brakes and turned off the car as she glared at him.
She was mad at him. He’d saved her ass, and she was mad at him. She’d been seething while she drove, but now she let it all out. “You could’ve been killed!”
“So could you have!” he countered. “What was your plan? Shoot Razeen with the handgun you’ve got in your boot?”
He saw from her eyes that he’d surprised her. She hadn’t realized he knew about the backup weapon she was still carrying in her boot.
Her hands were shaking, and she tried to hide it by crossing her arms, tucking them out of sight.
Nils wanted nothing more than to hold her, to reassure himself that she was truly all right, but instead he lit into her the way Senior Chief Wolchonok would’ve gone after one of the younger members of the team who’d made a stupid mistake.
“What do you think would’ve happened after you’d done that, Meg?” he asked. “Didn’t it occur to you that shooting Razeen might’ve pissed those guys off? Didn’t it occur to you that if you killed him, they’d kill you?”
“Yes,” she said just as heatedly, “that did occur to me!”
And she’d been ready to do it anyway. She would have done it anyway. That was how desperate she was.
“I was minutes from checking in,” she fumed. “Minutes. And the girl behind the desk told me that someone’s been calling—frequently—to see if I had arrived yet. I was that close!
“Now what?” she continued. It was getting stale in the car, and she rolled down the window, her movements jerky, filled with fury. “Why are we stopping here? You’ve got a gun now. You can take me in. What are you waiting for, Nilsson? This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Nils took the clip out of the little Uzi he’d taken from one of the K-stani thugs in the Seagull Motel parking lot and held it out to Meg. “I’m waiting for you to surrender your weapon voluntarily and ask me for help. At which time I’ll contact my CO and Max Bhagat, the FBI agent in charge of this investigation. It’s possible that the FBI have found out where the Extremists are holding Amy and Eve. Wouldn’t you like to know that?”
She snatched the clip from his hands. “If the FBI have located Amy and Eve, it’s also possible that the Extremists know it, and have already killed them in retaliation! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, remember?”
For a moment, Nils was certain she was going to cry, that she was going to crumble and break down, but this time she didn’t. She pulled herself together, sat up straighter. Her face pale, she turned to him. “Get out of the car.”
Nils reached for her. “Meg, god damn it, let me help you.”
She pulled away from him, opening the door and taking both the clip from the Uzi and the keys with her. “Get out of the car, John.”
Christ, she was bending over and taking the little handgun out of her boot.
“You don’t need that,” he said to her as he got out.
“It’s the end of the line.” The look in her eyes chilled him to the bone. He wasn’t afraid for his own safety. He didn’t doubt for one second that she would die herself to protect him. But if he didn’t stop her, she was going to kill Razeen—and regret it for the rest of her life.
“The Seagull Motel was my contact point with the Extremists,” she told him, her voice oddly flat. “I was supposed to check in and wait to be contacted. But I can’t go there without being attacked by the GIK. And after what just happened, the place is going to be crawling with police.”
“Meg.” Nils moved slowly around the car. Why the hell had he given up the Uzi? He should never have let her regain control of this situation. He should have realized how close she was to the edge.
And just how little she felt she had to lose.
It stung knowing that she didn’t include what he wanted, what he felt, in her equation. It hurt knowing that—aside from her wanting him to be safe—he wasn’t a factor that she considered when deciding whether or not she should sacrifice her soul and her life.
And whose fault was that, but his own? He’d never shared enough of himself. All those hours they’d just spent together in her car, and he still hadn’t told her jack about himself.
Yeah, he’d burped out the fact that he loved her, but she hadn’t believed him, and he hadn’t made an attempt to convince her it was really true.
So now she didn’t have a clue how much she stood to lose.
“I can’t go back to the motel. I have no choice,” Meg told him dispassionately, as if she’d detached from herself. “Now I’ve got to kill Razeen, and pray that the Extremists hear about it and believe that it’s real, pray that they release Amy and Eve after the news is out.”
“Meg, you’re not going to kill him. He’s not even awake. You promised him you wouldn’t—”
“I am awake.” Razeen’s voice came from the car. “It is okay, Meg. I am ready.”
Oh, fuck.
“Stay back, John,” Meg ordered. “I have to do this. I don’t have a choice anymore.”
He didn’t stay back. He moved in front of the car, between Meg and Razeen.
“There’s always a choice,” he told her again. “You could do it this way, sure. Murder this man.” She flinched at his choice of words, and he ruthlessly used it again. “Murder him and gamble that the Extremists will then release your daughter. Or you could let me help. You could let yourself trust me. Let me contact the FBI, let me get us the help we need.”
“It is an unnecessary risk,” Razeen’s voice floated out of the car, “when killing me will get you exactly what you want—your daughter.”
Nils raised his voice and talked over him. “In exchange for Razeen, in exchange for your cooperation, because you’re under duress, the FBI will drop all charges against you. I’ll make sure of that, Meg. Once we locate Amy and your grandmother, I’ll make sure my commanding officer, Lieutenant Paoletti, is in charge of the SEAL team that’ll do the rescue op. He and Bhagat will work with you, Meg, to find and free them.”
“Shoot me and save Amy,” Razeen urged.
“With the FBI and SEAL task force’s help,” Nils continued, willing her not to listen to Razeen, willing her to hear him out, to keep looking into his eyes, to stay connected, “we can go back to the Seagull Motel and wait. We’ll get the local police and the motel owners to cooperate. You told me yourself that someone’s been calling for you—that’s good. That means the Extremists probably haven’t been watching the place. They probably don’t know anything about what just went down. We can go back there, we can, Meg, and the FBI will grab any GIK members who show up, attempting to free Razeen. With the FBI’s help, we can still get that phone call from the Extremists. And when they do call and tell you where to meet them, I’ll go with you. I’ll pretend I’m Razeen.”
Meg shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“I’ll use makeup—shading so I look more like him. I’m a little taller, he’s a little heavier, but I’ll stoop and wear padding. You know I can do it.”
“If you go in as Razeen, you’d be putting yourself at tremendous risk,” she countered. “They could kill you right away!”
“I’ll wear body armor.”
“That won’t do any good if they shoot you in the head!” Heat was back in her voice. And even though she was arguing with him, it was far better than that near zombie flatness that had scared him to death.
“This is actually a better plan than you going in with Razeen,” Nils tried to make her understand, “because if the Extremists have no intention of releasing Amy and Eve, then I’ll be in there with you, with all of you. You’ll have a better chance of survival—Amy will have a better chance, Meg—if I’m there. You know this.”
“Except if they kill you right when you walk through the door!”
“If we do this right, if we use the Troubleshooters, let them do what they—we—have been trained to do, you and I won’t even have to get out of the car. Meg, you’ve got to listen to me—”
“Meg, do you remember what I told you?” Razeen wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He was desperate not to be turned over to the authorities, desperate to die as a martyr to his cause at her hand. “My death will save your daughter and bring me peace,” he said from the backseat of the car. “It will bring justice.”
Nils knew that Meg wanted to believe Razeen. She wanted it to be that easy.
“That’s bullshit,” he told Meg. “What he’s saying is total bullshit. Your killing him won’t bring any kind of justice. Saving Amy this way won’t make up for anything he’s done. It will only perpetuate the violence.”
Razeen started to say something else, and Nils opened the car door, and got the Uzi from the front seat. He knew exactly how and where to hit the terrorist leader to silence him on a slightly less permanent basis than what Meg had in mind.
It wasn’t quite the right punctuation to put on a statement about perpetuating violence, but he had to shut the fucker up and he had to do it now. So he did it swiftly. Efficiently. With a single solid blow. Razeen sagged, out cold and finally silent.
“I know you,” Nils said, turning back to Meg, desperate now to make her understand. “Despite everything that’s happened, despite everything you’ve said over the past few days. I know you. And killing this man will haunt you for the rest of your life. You’ll never be free from it. Never. You’ve got to trust me on this, Meg. Please, God, trust me.”
But she didn’t trust him. He could see it in her eyes. Once again, it had come down to too little, too late.
Except Nils didn’t believe in too late. He didn’t buy into no hope. He refused to accept a no-win scenario of any kind.
So he kept talking. “Do you really think you can put a bullet in Razeen’s head, and not have it destroy you?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “If there’s no other way—”
“There is another way,” he told her. “If there truly were no other way, don’t you think that I would shoot him for you? Christ, Meg, don’t you know that I would do that for you if there really were no other option?”
She looked startled at that, and he kept going, hammering at her mercilessly.
“I would,” he said ruthlessly. “I would die for you, I would kill for you. Let’s get that straight right now. I’m telling you that there is another way, and you’ve got to trust me on that, Meg. I’m a professional liar, you know that, and I’ll cop to it, too. I haven’t been honest with you about where I come from. But that’s just the stupid details. You don’t need to know that stuff to know me. And you do know me.” There were tears in his eyes now and he let her see them. “You know—you have to know—that I wouldn’t lie to you about this. I understand that you want me out of the picture because you think that then I’ll be safe, but you’re wrong about that, too. It’s only when I’m with you that I’m safe. The rest of the time, I am completely goddamn lost.”
His voice broke and he had to take a deep breath. Jesus, he’d never admitted that before, not even to himself. But shit, why stop there? His lip was trembling and the tears in his eyes were threatening to escape. He was a heartbeat from breaking down and crying like a baby.
“I fell in love with you in that hallway outside of your office in Kazbekistan,” he managed to tell her, his voice embarrassingly shaky. “I’m still in love with you. I stayed away because you were married, but that’s the only reason I stayed away. And you better believe that neither hell nor high water could keep me from you now, Meg. I am in this with you to the end. If you believe nothing else I’ve said, god damn it, believe that.”
Ah, Jesus, he was crying. But instead of turning away, he held his ground and let her see. She wanted the truth from him. Well, there it was. Fucking streaming down his face.
“But are you with me?” he asked her. “That’s the question that needs to be answered here. Don’t you want to cut the crap and give me your gun so that together, together, we can go get help to find Amy and bring her home?”
When Meg started to cry, too, Nils knew that he’d won. The relief nearly knocked him to his knees, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet.
She held the side arm out to him. “Help me,” she whispered. “Please, John, help me find Amy and bring her back home.”
He took the gun from her, took her into his arms. “Thank you,” he said, holding her close. “Thank you.”
Twenty-one
LOCKE WALKED WARILY i
nto the busy war room that had been set up by the task force in Orlando.
It had happened just the way Starrett had predicted it would. John Nilsson had finally called, telling Paoletti and Bhagat that Meg was willing to surrender Osman Razeen to the FBI in return for a deal.
A major deal.
A deal that included the formation of an FBI task force to locate the Extremists and kick in their door. Max Bhagat was in charge, with SEAL Team Sixteen’s Troubleshooters providing assistance. Bhagat was a good leader who knew enough to stand back and let the SEALs do what they’d been trained to do. He respected and listened to Lt. Tom Paoletti.
And Paoletti had specifically requested Locke be part of the team.
She had flown down here with completely mixed feelings. Was she here because Paoletti knew she was one of the best shooters in the Western hemisphere, or was she here because Roger Starrett had been flapping his mouth, and Tom—and the rest of the Troubleshooters squad—wanted to look at her and leer?
It hadn’t even been twelve hours since she’d woken up in Starrett’s bed. Her head was still pounding—she still felt as if she’d been hit by a steamroller.
She moved carefully, trying not to jar her brain, bracing herself as WildCard Karmody caught sight of her and grinned.
“Hey, Locke. Welcome to the Loony Bin.” He turned back to his computer, engrossed by whatever was on the screen.
Locke stood still. Was that it? A simple greeting, no winking, no sneering, no innuendo?
In the far corner of the room, she could see John Nilsson working with a team of FBI specialists to alter his appearance. There were enlarged photos of Osman Razeen on the wall and a big mirror in front of Nils.
Closer to her, PO Mark Jenkins and the new ensign, Muldoon, were have a grand old time, stomping on what looked to be an expensive black suit. They were antiquing it, of course. If Nils were going to pretend to be Razeen, he needed to wear a dark suit similar to the one Razeen had been wearing when he was snatched. Except Razeen had been wearing his suit for days now. So Jenk and Muldoon were making the suit that Nils was going to put on look as if he’d been wearing it for many days in a row, too.
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