But she wasn’t going to have a chance to do that. Because of her own fears and weaknesses, she’d pushed Joe away. She’d given up the few moments of happiness she could have had with him. She’d given up a lingering kiss goodbye. She’d given up a phone call that could have been filled with whispered “I love you’s” instead of stilted apologies and chilly regrets.
How ironic that she was the one who was going to die a violent and horrible death.
Four minutes past six.
“What could be taking them so long?” Diosdado mused. He smiled at Veronica. “I’m so sorry, dear. I know you must be anxious to get this over with. I’d do it myself, but when Prince Tedric comes in, we’re going to play a little game. Do you want to know the rules?”
Veronica looked into the eyes of the man who was going to kill her. “Why do you do this?” she asked.
“Because I can.” The eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re not afraid, are you?” he asked.
She was terrified. But she was damned if she was going to let him know that. She replied, “I’m saddened. There’s a man that I love, and he’s never going to know just how much I really do love him.”
Diosdado laughed. “Isn’t that tragic,” he said. “You’re just as pathetic as the rest of them. And to think, for a moment I was actually considering sparing you.”
Five minutes past six.
He’d never had any intention of sparing her. It was just another of his head games. Veronica didn’t allow any expression to cross her face.
“You didn’t let me tell you about this game we’re going to play,” the terrorist continued. “It’s called ‘Who’s the Killer?’ When Prince Tedric comes in, I’ll put a gun on the table over here.” He patted the tabletop. “And then, with my gun on him, I’ll order him to pick up that gun and fire a bullet into your head.” He laughed. “Do you think he’ll do it?”
“You aren’t afraid he’ll turn and use the gun on you?”
“Prince Tedric?” Diosdado blew out a burst of disparaging air. “No. The man has no…backbone.” He shook his head. “No, it will be your brains on these nice windows, not mine.”
The door was pushed tentatively open, and Prince Tedric came onto the bridge. He was still wearing his cowboy hat, pulled low over his face. But his jacket was unbuttoned. That was odd—surely a sign of his despondency. Veronica had never seen him look anything but fastidious.
“Your Royalness,” Diosdado said. He swooped low in a mocking bow. “I believe you are familiar with Miss Veronica St. John, yes?”
Tedric nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I know Ronnie.”
Ronnie?
Veronica looked up at Tedric in surprise—and met Joe’s warm brown gaze.
Joe! Here?
The rush of emotions was intense. Veronica had never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life. Or so frightened. Lord, please, don’t let Joe be killed, too….
“Get down,” Joe mouthed silently.
“We’re going to play a little game,” Diosdado was saying.
“I’ve got a game for you,” Joe said in Tedric’s Ustanzian accent. “It’s called ‘Show-and-Tell.”’
He pulled the biggest machine gun Veronica had ever seen in her life out from under his open jacket and aimed it at Diosdado.
“I show you my gun,” Joe finished in his regular voice, “and you freeze. Then tell your army to surrender.”
Diosdado didn’t freeze. He lifted his gun.
Veronica dove for the floor as they opened fire. The noise was incredible, and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. But just as quickly as it started, it stopped. And then Joe was next to her on the floor, pulling her into his arms.
“Ronnie! God, tell me you’re all right!”
She clung to his neck. “Oh, Joe!” She pulled back. “Are you all right?” He seemed to be in one piece, despite all of the bullets that had been flying just moments earlier.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Veronica shook her head.
He kissed her, hard, on the mouth and she closed her eyes, pulling him closer, kissing him back with as much strength and passion. She welcomed his familiar taste, giddy with relief and a sense of homecoming she’d never experienced before. He’d come to save her. Somehow he’d known, and he’d come.
“Well,” Joe said, his voice husky as he drew back. “I guess this is probably the one situation where you’d be indisputably glad to see me, huh?” He smiled, but there was a flash of remorse in his eyes as he took off Tedric’s jacket, revealing some kind of dark uniform and vest underneath.
He was serious. He honestly thought the only reason she was so happy to see him was because he had come to save her life. “No, Joe—” she said, but he stopped her, standing and pulling her to her feet.
“Come on, baby, we’ve got to get moving,” Joe said. “In about thirty seconds, this place is going to be crawling with tangos who heard that gunfire. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Joe—”
“Tell me while we’re moving,” he said, not unkindly, as he pulled her toward the door. She hesitated only a second, glancing back over her shoulder at where Diosdado had stood only moments before.
“Is he…?”
Joe nodded. “Yeah.” Holding her hand, he led her gently down the corridor. She was shaking slightly, but otherwise seemed okay. Of course, it was entirely possible that the shock of what she’d just been through hadn’t set in. Still, they had to move while they could. “Can you run?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
They set off down the corridor at an easy trot.
She was still holding his hand, and she squeezed it slightly. “I love you,” she said.
Joe glanced at her. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but she managed to smile as she met his gaze. “I didn’t think I’d get the chance to tell you that ever again,” she explained. “And I know we’re not out of danger, so I wanted to make sure you knew, in case—”
Veronica was right—they weren’t out of danger. They were at the opposite end of the ship from the extraction point, and the tangos had surely been alerted to the fact that there were intruders on board. They had surely noticed that their hostages were missing and their leader was dead. SEAL Team Ten had stirred up one hell of a hornet’s nest—and Joe and Veronica were still in the middle of it.
But Joe wasn’t about to tell Veronica that. They could pull this off. Damn it, they would pull this off. He was a SEAL and he was armed to the teeth. Several dozen terrorists didn’t stand a chance against him. Hell, with stakes this high, with the life of the woman he loved at risk, he could take on several hundred and win.
Joe slowed, peering around a corner, making sure they weren’t about to run head-on into a pack of terrorists. Veronica loved him, and even though she didn’t love him enough to want to marry him, he didn’t care anymore. He honestly didn’t care. If he’d been five minutes later, if that evil bastard Diosdado hadn’t wanted to play games with his victims, if any number of things had been different, he would have lost Veronica permanently. The thought made him crazy. She could have been killed, and he would be alone, without her forever and ever.
But she hadn’t been killed. They’d both been given a second chance, and Joe wasn’t going to waste it. And he wanted to make his feelings clear to her—now—before she walked away from him again.
“When this is all over,” he said almost conversationally, “after you’re off this ship and safely back onshore, you’re going to have to get used to me coming around to visit you. You don’t have to marry me, Ronnie. It doesn’t have to be anything permanent. But I’ve got to tell you right now—I have no intention of letting this thing between us drop, do you follow?”
Silently, she nodded.
“Good,” Joe said. “You don’t have to go out with me in public. You don’t have to acknowledge our relationship at all—not to your friends, not to your family. I’ll keep sneaking in your back door, baby, if that’s the way you
want it. You can just go on slumming, indefinitely. I don’t give a damn, because I love you.” To hell with his pride. To hell with it all. He’d take her any way he could get her.
“Slumming?” Veronica echoed, surprise in her voice. “What—”
“Beg your pardon, Romeo,” came Blue’s voice over Joe’s headset, and Joe held up his hand, cutting Veronica off, “but I thought you might want to know that I’ve extracted with my royal luggage. Ronnie’s the last civilian on board. The tangos know something’s up, so move it, Cat—fast. The USS Watkins is moving into position, picking up the IBS’s with the hostages. I’m coming back to the Majestic to assist you—”
“No,” Joe interrupted. Veronica was watching him, with that look on her face that meant she was dying to speak. He shook his head, touching his headset as he spoke to his XO. “No, Blue, I need you to stay with the prince,” he ordered. “But make sure there’s a boat waiting for me and Ronnie at the bottom of that rope at the bow of this ship.”
“You got it,” Blue said. “See you on the Watkins.”
“Check,” Joe replied.
Veronica watched Joe. Slumming? What had he meant? Then her words came back to her. Different worlds. She’d talked about their different worlds when she’d turned down his marriage proposal. She’d been referring to the differences between his matter-of-fact response to danger, his thrill for adventure, and her fears of letting him go. Had he somehow misunderstood her? Had he actually thought she’d been talking about their supposed class differences—assuming something as absurd as class differences even existed? Could he actually have thought she was put off by something as ridiculous as where he came from or where he grew up?
Veronica opened her mouth, about to speak, when suddenly, from somewhere on the ship, there was an enormous, swooshing noise, like a rocket being launched.
“What was that?” Veronica breathed.
But Joe was listening again, listening to the voices over his headset.
“Check,” he said into his microphone. He turned toward Veronica. “The T’s are firing artillery at the hostages. Return fire,” he ordered. He listened again. “You’re gonna have to,” he said tersely. “We’re down below, outside the game room, but that’s gonna change real soon. I’ll keep you informed of my position. You just use that high-tech equipment and make sure you aim when you shoot. Fire now. Do you copy? Fire now.”
“My Lord!” Veronica said. Joe had just given an order for the men on the USS Watkins to return fire at the cruise ship—while she and Joe were still on board!
A deafening explosion the likes of which Veronica had never heard before thundered around them. The missile from the USS Watkins rocked the entire ship, seeming to lift it out of the water and throw it back down.
Joe grabbed Veronica’s hand and pulled her with him down the hallway.
“Okay, Watkins,” he said over his headset. “We’re heading away from the game room, toward the bow of the ship.” There was a flight of stairs leading up toward the deck. Joe motioned for Veronica to hang back as he crawled up and peeked over the edge. He motioned with his hand for her to follow him. “Heading toward the recreation deck,” he said into his microphone as he climbed up the steps and got his bearings, hanging back in the shadows and looking around. Veronica wasn’t sure what he saw, but it didn’t make him happy. “We’re not going to make it to the extraction point,” he said. “We’ve got to find another way off—”
Then Joe saw it—the perfect escape vehicle—and smiled. Diosdado’s helicopters were sitting there, waiting to be hijacked. But this time by the good guys.
They were twenty yards from the helicopter. Twenty yards from freedom.
“Heading for the choppers up on the deck,” he said into his mike. “Keep those missiles coming in, but keep ’em clear of us.”
Fifteen yards. Ten. God, they were going to make it. They were—
All hell broke loose.
It was a small squad of T’s—only about five of them—but they came out of nowhere.
Joe had his gun up and firing as he stepped in front of Veronica. He felt the slap of a bullet hit him low in his gut, beneath the edge of his flak jacket, but he felt no pain, only anger.
Damn it, he wasn’t going to let Ronnie die. No way in hell was he going to let her die. Not now. Not when he was so close to getting her to safety…
His bullets plowed through the terrorists, taking them down, or driving them away from him to cover. But the sound of gunfire drew more of them toward him.
His mind registered the first sensations of pain. Pain? The word didn’t come close to describing the white-hot, searing agony he felt with every step, every movement. He was gut-shot, and every pounding beat of his heart was pumping his blood out of his body. It wouldn’t be long before he bled to death. Still firing his gun, he tried to stanch the flow. He’d been trained as a hospital corpsman—all SEALs were. He’d been trained to provide first aid to his men, and even to himself. He needed to apply pressure, but it was tough with a wound this size. The bullet had penetrated him, leaving an exit wound in his back, through which he also bled.
God, the pain.
Through it all, he kept going. If they could reach the chopper, he could still fly Ronnie out of here. If they could reach the chopper, bleeding or not, dying or not, he could get her to the Watkins.
The door to the bird was open—God was on his side—but Joe didn’t seem to have the strength to push Veronica in. “Dear Lord, you’re bleeding,” he heard her say. He felt her push him up and into the cockpit. And then, damned if she didn’t grab the Uzi, and turn and fire out the open door, keeping the T’s at bay while, through a fog, Joe started the engine. He could fly anything, he told himself over and over, hoping that the litany would somehow make his brain respond. They didn’t make a chopper he couldn’t handle. But his arms felt like lead and his legs weren’t working right. Still, he had to do it. He had to, or Veronica was going to die alongside him.
And then, miracle of miracles, they were up. They were in the air and moving away from the ship.
“We’re clear of the Majestic,” Joe rasped into his microphone. “Launch a full-scale attack.”
The world blurred for a second, and then snapped sharply into focus.
That was smoke he saw coming from the engine. Sweet Jesus, the chopper must have sustained a direct hit. Somehow, Joe had gotten the damned thing up, but it wasn’t going to stay in the air too much longer.
“Tell them you need a medic standing by,” Veronica said.
“We’ve got bigger problems,” Joe told her.
She saw the smoke, and her eyes widened, but her voice didn’t falter as she told him again, “You’ve been shot. Make sure someone on the Watkins knows that, Joe.”
“We’re not going to make it to the Watkins,” Joe said. He spoke into his microphone. “Blue, I need you, man.”
“I’m here, and I see you,” Blue’s familiar Southern drawl sounded in his ears. “You’re leaving a trail of smoke like a cheap cigar, Cat. I’m coming out to meet you.”
“Good,” Joe said. “Because I’m going to bring this bird low, and Ronnie’s gonna jump out into the water, you copy?”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Veronica said, adding loudly, loud enough for Blue to hear, “Joe’s been hit, and he’s bleeding badly.”
“I have a medic standing by,” Blue said to Joe. “Is it bad, Cat?”
Joe ignored Blue’s question. “I’m right behind you, Ronnie,” he said to Veronica, knowing damn well that he was telling her a lie. “But I’m not going to ditch this bird until you’re clear.”
He could see her indecision in her eyes. She didn’t want to leave him.
God, he was getting light-headed, and this chopper was getting harder and harder to handle as he hovered ten feet above the water’s surface. The combination was not good.
“Go,” he said.
“Joe—”
“Baby, please…” He couldn’t hold o
n much longer.
“Promise you’ll be right behind me?”
He nodded, praying to God for forgiveness for his lie. “I promise.”
She slid open the door. “I want us to get married right away,” she said, and then she was gone.
The water was cold as ice.
It surrounded Veronica, squeezing her chest as she surfaced and tried to take in a breath of air.
But then a boat was there, and hands reached for her, pulling her up.
Veronica ignored the cold as she turned to watch the chopper, hovering above the waves, its whirling blades turning the ocean into choppy whitecaps. Someone wrapped a blanket around her— Blue, it was Blue McCoy, Joe’s executive officer.
The plume of smoke from the helicopter was darker, thicker. And the chopper seemed to lurch instead of holding still.
“Why won’t he jump?” she wondered aloud.
Before she finished speaking, the helicopter jerked forward and down—into the water.
She could hear shouting—it was Blue’s voice—and she couldn’t believe that the noise—some noise, any noise, wasn’t coming from her own throat.
The helicopter was sinking beneath the waves, taking Joe with it, taking all her hopes and dreams for the future away from her.
“No!” she cried, the word torn from her raggedly.
“I’m going in after him.” It was Blue. “Pull this boat closer.”
“Sir, I can’t let you do that,” said a young man in a naval uniform. His face was pale. “If the chopper doesn’t pull you under, the water’s so cold, it’ll kill you. You won’t last more than five minutes before hypothermia sets in.”
“Pull the damned boat closer, Ensign,” Blue said, his voice as cold as the Alaskan water. “I’m a SEAL, and that’s my commander down there. I’m going after him.”
The water was cold as ice.
It roused Joe from his fog as it splashed him in the face.
Damn, he’d gone down. He didn’t remember going down. All he remembered was Ronnie—
Ronnie telling him that she wanted to…marry him?
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