Over the Edge

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Ask him if he thinks we’re stupid, Karen,” Bob countered.

  “Max,” Gina said. “You don’t think Bob is stupid, do you? Over.”

  What was Max doing? He’d heard her conversation with Bob, heard her connect with him. He knew the hijacker was vulnerable right now because of that connection. She knew Max knew it—he’d taught it to her himself—told her all about negotiating with someone who was under stress—just hours ago. And yet he was trying to use this opportunity to get Gina free. Just Gina, no one else.

  He must really think she was going to be killed. And soon.

  “Why don’t you want to release her?” Max asked. “Because she’s the senator’s daughter? Over.”

  Gina looked at Bob, who nodded. “Yes. Over.”

  “You want an important hostage?” Max asked. “You can have an important hostage. You can have me. I’m one of the United States’top negotiators, Bob. There are a lot of people who would be having heart attacks if they knew I was offering to put myself in your hands. But I am offering. She comes off, I’ll come on. Let’s do it. Right now. I’m walking out of terminal A, heading right for you, Bob. So let’s do it. Send her off the plane. Over.”

  Bob scrambled for the window. Gina looked, too, out into the night.

  And then she could see him. Max. A distant, shadowy figure backlit by the lights from the terminal. For the first time, he was more than just a disembodied voice. He was a real man, and he was walking toward them. Ready to trade himself for her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Tell him to stop,” Bob ordered.

  “Max, stop. Please.”

  The distant figure stopped moving. He raised what had to be some kind of wireless walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Come on, Bob. Doing this will show your willingness to work toward mutual satisfaction. It’s a goodwill gesture, and it puts you into an even better bargaining position. You are not losing here. Over.”

  “Tell him no,” Bob said. “Tell him he’s the one who needs to make a goodwill gesture. Tell him meeting the first of our demands and freeing our leader from prison is the kind of goodwill we’re looking for.”

  Gina took a deep breath and gave it another try. “It doesn’t have to be me going off the plane,” she told Bob. “Freeing the women and children would be a gesture of—”

  He turned to her swiftly, his voice sharp, his face suddenly angry. “I said no.”

  For a moment, Gina was certain he was going to hit her. Right in the face with the butt of his gun.

  “Tell him if he comes any closer,” he said, “we’ll shoot him and then we’ll shoot you.”

  That was no idle threat. Gina keyed the microphone. “Max, go back inside. Now.”

  Stan woke up right before his watch alarm went off.

  He wasn’t certain if it was his internal alarm clock that was so accurate or if his watch made some kind of small, almost indiscernible noise or click—something that he’d learned to listen for in his sleep—right before it beeped.

  He sat up, switching it off and rubbing his stiff neck, momentarily surprised to find himself on a couch in the hotel lobby. But then he remembered stopping to sit because he was too exhausted and too much of a pouty baby to come face-to-face with Mike Muldoon right after he’d seen the ensign kissing Teri Howe.

  Yeah, he remembered that a little too well.

  What he didn’t remember was this blanket. It was chilly tonight—the desert effect—and he’d have had a whole lot more than a stiff neck without it.

  Who the hell had gone to the trouble to cover him?

  He caught a whiff of a familiar scent, and he brought the blanket to his nose. It smelled like . . .

  No. That was crazy. Besides, he’d seen Teri Howe go up to her room. She’d looked tired, not as if she were about to start wandering the hotel lobby, handing out blankets to sleeping SEALs.

  But he smelled it again. No, he definitely wasn’t imagining it. It smelled like Teri’s hair. As crazy as it seemed, he would bet his life that she’d used this very blanket in the not-too-distant past.

  Maybe she’d been too tired to sleep. He knew all about that—he’d been there too many times to count.

  Maybe she’d been too tired to sleep, so she’d left her room, looking for him.

  Oh, yeah, right. That must be it.

  Except, damn, maybe that was it. Maybe she’d wanted to talk more about everything she’d told him that afternoon. He still couldn’t believe she’d never told anyone—that she’d been carrying that terrible secret around inside of her since she was eight years old.

  That was a real possibility. Maybe she’d come looking for him to tell him something else that she’d remembered or, Christ, maybe just to get a little comfort after stirring up the past, and what had he done? He’d been unavailable. He’d been unconscious and drooling on this sofa.

  Way to go, Stanley.

  He took the blanket with him and headed up to his room. He’d return it to her later. With an apology.

  Right now he had just enough time to grab a shower and some food before he had to report to the roof.

  Sam Starrett slapped the off button on the clock radio before it woke Alyssa.

  0200. He had just enough time to shower and get something to eat before he had to report to the roof.

  He’d slept maybe two hours, max. Yet he felt far more refreshed, far more energized than he had in months.

  Because Alyssa was in his bed.

  She stirred, burrowing against him, all smooth, warm skin and soft breasts and taut thighs. He kissed her—how could he not?—and she roused.

  “Mmmm,” she said, smiling at him sleepily. Reaching down between them, she found him hard again—big surprise. She drew her leg up over his hip, pulling him toward her as she moved closer, too.

  Damn, the woman was insatiable. But then again, he couldn’t get enough of her either.

  He was starting to hope that she would still want him, come the morning. That she’d wake up just like this—smiling and still hot for him.

  Sam looked at the clock: 0202. He could get dressed in a minute. Another minute to take a leak and splash cold water on his face. And if he ran all the way, he could get to the roof in two minutes. That left twenty-four.

  He grabbed a condom from the pile Alyssa had put on the bedside table and covered himself. Showers were overrated anyway. And he could always call WildCard—his friend once again—and ask him to bring something to eat and lots of coffee for the helo ride.

  Alyssa was barely awake but waiting for him, warm and wet from wanting him—even in her sleep. He slipped into her tight heat and she clung to him, moaning his name.

  Oh yeah, showers were way overrated.

  By 0215 Teri had run the helo’s checklist. She was ready to fly.

  Standing on the roof was no longer as hazardous as it had been when they’d first arrived in this city. Marines were posted everywhere, their presence obvious in the buildings that surrounded the hotel. Still, she was more comfortable waiting just inside the door.

  At 0216 there were footsteps heading up the stairs. It was Stan. Had to be. No one else walked like that, with such steady confidence.

  “Hey,” he said, when he caught sight of her. It was hard to tell if he looked less tired than last night—he had black greasepaint smeared on his face.

  “Hi, Stan,” she said, using the opportunity to practice saying his name.

  “Aren’t you sorry you volunteered for this now? This is the time of night I always regret that I didn’t take my mother’s advice to get a job as a plumber.”

  She laughed at that. “You do not.”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “You’re right, I don’t. Sleep okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Actually, she’d slept better than she had in a long time.

  “Really?” he said. “No nocturnal wanderings?”

  He was standing right beside her now, and for half an instant, she could have sworn he was leaning closer to smell her still dam
p hair.

  “It was you,” he said. “I thought so. The blanket,” he explained. “It smelled like . . . well, like you.”

  He had been smelling her hair.

  Teri didn’t know what to say. “Should I apologize?” she asked. “I guess it really depends on whether the next thing you say is Teri, you smell great, or Teri, you smell like a barnyard.”

  He laughed. “Trust me, you smell great.” He caught himself and began to backpedal. “I don’t mean that with anything other than the utmost respect and—”

  “Stop.” Teri let her annoyance show. “I know how you meant it.” As a friend. As in no, she didn’t smell like a barnyard, so yes, that meant, by default, that she smelled great. God forbid he slip and let himself be attracted to her.

  He surprised her by holding her gaze. “Okay,” he said. “Good. This isn’t the time or place to talk about this, but after what you told me yesterday, you’ll forgive me if I bend over backward a little to reestablish whatever amount of trust I lost when—”

  “How could you think I don’t trust you?” she asked. “After what I told you?”

  His gaze softened. “You know, I thought about it all night. What you told me. Christ, I even dreamed about it. I just keep picturing the way you must’ve looked when you were eight and I . . .” He shook his head, the muscle jumping in the side of his jaw. “Teri, God help me, I still want to hunt this son of a bitch down and kill him. I have a feeling I’m going to be ninety, and I’ll think about him, and I’ll still want to find him and tear out his throat with my bare hands.”

  Teri didn’t let herself think. She just reached for him, and God, he didn’t push her away. He just held her. She wasn’t quite sure who was comforting whom.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “For who?” Stan asked with a forced-sounding laugh. “Him or me?”

  He was trying to keep this from being too heavy, too intense.

  She didn’t feel like answering. She didn’t feel like doing much of anything—besides standing there in the warm circle of Stan’s arms.

  God, she was pathetic. One friendly, comforting hug, and she was ready to melt. Mike Muldoon had kissed her last night, and it hadn’t made her heart race even a quarter of the way it did when Stan so much as looked at her.

  What would Stan say if she asked him to have breakfast with her? When the sun came up and they returned to the hotel after running the drill on the practice plane a few million times? What would he do if that breakfast was a private one, in her hotel room with room service and the curtains drawn and the bed right there—the centerpiece of the room.

  He would eat his eggs, be polite and gentle as he explained why the two of them getting naked would be a particularly bad idea.

  And then he’d try to set her up with Muldoon again.

  God, maybe she should just do it. Get with Mike Muldoon. He seemed to want her. Stan sure wanted them together, that was clear. She wanted Stan, she really did, but if she couldn’t have him, Muldoon was certainly a good second choice. He was a nice enough guy. And he seemed to have no problem talking about one of her favorite subjects—Stan.

  “If you ever need to talk,” Stan told her now, “just wake me, okay? I woke up with your blanket on me, and I immediately pictured you wandering the lobby all night long, dying for someone to talk to, while I snored.”

  “You weren’t snoring. And I was in the lobby for only a few minutes.”

  “I’m serious,” Stan said, pulling back to look at her. “Day or night, Teri. If you need someone . . .”

  Gently he extracted himself even further from her arms, and she realized someone was coming up the stairs. Lots of someones. It was 0225 and the team was finally on its way.

  “Did I thank you yet?” Stan asked her, his voice low. “For the blanket?”

  She shook her head, wishing he hadn’t let go of her so soon. Wishing he hadn’t let go of her at all.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Really. I don’t think anyone’s tucked me in like that since my mother died.”

  Great, now she reminded him of his mother.

  “Yo, Senior Chief!” It was Mark Jenkins, far too enthusiastic than he had a right to be, considering the hour.

  Cosmo, Silverman, Jefferson, O’Leary, and Jay Lopez were with him, all considerably less thrilled. WildCard was next, dragging himself up the stairs, looking like death warmed over—which was pretty standard for him any time of day, come to think of it.

  Mike Muldoon was last and then they were all there—except they weren’t. Stan noticed the same time she did.

  “Where’s Starrett?”

  Their team leader was missing. Sam Starrett, usually fifteen minutes early and tapping his foot for the others to show, had yet to arrive.

  They heard him before they saw him, with the slam of a door as it was pushed open echoing in the stairwell. Then pounding feet—he must’ve been taking the stairs two at a time and running full speed.

  “Everyone here?” he asked, when he was still a half flight away.

  Teri stared. They all stared.

  His was hair was down around his shoulders and he was only half dressed. He was barefoot, carrying his boots and socks, with his shirt unbuttoned and his belt undone.

  Starrett glanced at his watch. “Oh-two-thirty,” he said. “On the nose. Let’s do it. Let’s go.”

  Helga awoke to the sound of someone running.

  Hard and fast down a long length of something—a hallway.

  It was a sound that signaled danger, the need for flight, and she was up and out of her bed, heart pounding, before she realized she wasn’t sleeping in the Gunvalds’kitchen, on a pallet that Herr Gunvald had made, between her mother and father.

  There was a crash—the sound of a door being smashed open, and she jumped, nearly diving beneath the bed.

  But it wasn’t her door being forced. There were no voices shouting in harsh German, no dogs barking, no more noise at all.

  Of course not. She wasn’t ten years old. She was a grown woman. No, she was an old woman.

  And she was in a hotel room, with generic hotel furnishings and curtains. Generic and shabby. She’d come down in the world from . . . from . . .

  From she didn’t know where. She didn’t even know if it was safe to turn on the light—if she were someplace where there was a nightly blackout to prevent bombers in the skies overhead from targeting them here below.

  She listened hard, but she could hear nothing. No sound of distant fighting. No drone of aircraft.

  Nothing but the ticking of the wind-up alarm clock she’d brought and set next to the electric clock radio on the hotel bedside table—so that she’d be sure to wake up even if the power went out.

  There were Post-it notes all over the room. They were stuck on every available surface. On the dresser, on the bedside table, on the lamp next to the bed, on the light switch, on the door.

  Helga could see light through the crack under the door to the hallway. Keeping the chain on, she opened the door. Peeled one of the sticky notes that was posted right there by the lock and angled it to the light.

  Don’t leave without your room key, notepad, and purse.

  She plucked the note from the light switch by the door. It, too, was written in her own neat handwriting.

  It’s safe to turn on the lights.

  That was good to know. Helga closed the door and flipped the switch.

  Welcome to Kazbekistan, said another. Thank you. Maybe. She hoped she wasn’t here on her vacation. Kazbekistan wasn’t the kind of country one went to relax.

  World Airlines Flight 232 has been hijacked by terrorists. Possible GIK connections? 120 passengers on board. Oh, dear. And oh, yes. She remembered. She and Des had come here to make the terrorists believe there was hope of negotiating a settlement. But there wasn’t. U.S. Navy SEALs were preparing—probably right now—to take down the plane, although she couldn’t for the life of her remember the name of the CO or even the number of the SEAL Team.
It wasn’t Six, was it?

  List of major players in notepad. Thank you, dear self. That would help.

  It would almost be funny if it weren’t so damned pathetic. Clearly she’d been having these little lapses in memory with some frequency, hence all the Post-it notes to aid her in moments just like this one.

  She climbed back in bed.

  Ah, here was an interesting one, right on the headboard. Senior Chief Stanley Wolchonock is Marte Gunvald’s son.

  If she closed her eyes and focused, she could picture him. Light hair, broad shoulders, craggy features. Not exactly handsome, but not exactly not. He didn’t smile all that often, but when he did, his face became wonderfully warm and tremendously appealing.

  And he had eyes just like Annebet’s.

  Helga’s notepad was right there on the bedside table, and Annebet’s name seemed to jump out at her from the page.

  “Annebet Gunvald,” she read, also in her own familiar hand. “Went to America after the war. Became pediatrician, died two years ago. Never married.”

  Stanley had told her this late this afternoon. She remembered that now.

  Annebet had never married.

  Again.

  She’d married once, though. To Helga’s brother, Hershel. Helga had attended the ceremony.

  It had been a strange one, although possibly the nicest Helga had ever witnessed, both before and after. The rabbi—no doubt heeding Poppi’s grim wishes—claimed he couldn’t find the time to marry Hershel and Annebet until the following spring. And the pastor of the Gunvalds’church had been ready to perform the ceremony right then and there, until he heard Hershel’s name. Then, suddenly, he was also unavailable for a great many months. Anti-Semitic, Annebet had muttered angrily, but Hershel had merely moved on to the next possibility. But every church they approached, they were turned away.

  The justice of the peace had been rounded up with a group of known communists five months earlier. No one had heard from him in nearly that long.