Breaking Point

by Suzanne Brockmann

  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 stat
ions, 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.