But then Max heard Gina’s voice, over the phone: “Max, Emilio’s got a gun, he says he doesn’t want you to . . . come in . . . ? Where are you? Oh, my God, are you really that close? Yeah, yeah—I know,” she sounded annoyed, obviously speaking to Emilio. “Max, he says to tell you if you come in here, he’ll shoot me.” Back to Emilio. “I told him, all right?”
“White van, leaving garage,” Jules announced over the sound of tires squealing.
Goddamn it.
“Are you and Molly still inside the house?” Max asked Gina as he followed Jones. There was about a ten-foot drop to the alley alongside the building, but he landed on his feet. Jules was right behind him.
“Yes,” Gina told him.
“You’re not in a moving vehicle.” He had to make sure.
There was a battered Ford Escort parked on the street—Jones had already opened the rusted door and started hot-wiring the damn thing.
“No.” She was definite.
“And Molly’s with you?” Max asked.
“She’s right here,” Gina said. “Max, what’s going on?”
Jules was already inside the garage, weapon drawn. Whoever had driven away in that van had been in such a hurry, they’d not only left the garage bay open wide, but the door to the house was also ajar.
And it was some door, too. Like something you’d see on a bunker, built to withstand a major assault.
Max called to Jules in a low voice. “Hold up.”
Jules jammed something between the door and the frame, making sure it wouldn’t swing shut as he nodded, signaling that he copied—that he wasn’t going any farther inside. “Jones,” he hissed, to catch the man’s eye as he came back out to the open bay door. He silently motioned for Jones to get out of the street. He also pointed into the garage and mimed holding a steering wheel. His meaning was quite clear. There was a car in there.
Jones nodded as he closed the Escort’s door and jogged toward them.
Max was focusing on Gina, who was on the other end of that phone. “Tell Emilio I’m right outside, that I want to come in—just to talk. No weapons, completely unarmed—hands up and open. Tell him I’ll strip naked if he wants me to. God knows I’ve done it before.”
Gina actually laughed. “Really?”
“Yeah, tell him.”
She sounded . . . exactly the way she’d always sounded. Max didn’t know what he’d expected—maybe a subdued, frightened, defeated Gina, overcome with the terror of knowing just how slim her chances were of making it out of this situation unharmed.
“Oh, Max,” she said, “you don’t know how glad I am to hear your voice.”
“Just tell him, Gina,” he said, but he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “And ditto.” He muted the phone as she passed along his message, because he could see that Jules had something to add.
But Jones spoke first. “We don’t have much time before reinforcements arrive.”
“Are we sure he’s not telling the truth?” Jules asked. “If I kidnapped someone, and decided to let her go, except suddenly her very angry husband showed up on my doorstep, I’d go into cornered animal mode, too. If Emilio’s wife is dead—”
“If he even has a wife,” Jones pointed out.
“Work your magic on this car,” Jules ordered Jones. “Testa might not be willing to hand over his keys. Let’s be ready to move. I’m going to call the embassy in Dili, give them a heads up as to the situation.” He turned to Max. “I need your phone—you’ve got mine.”
Max fished in his pocket and handed his over.
“Max?” Gina came back onto Jules’s phone.
“I’m here,” he told her.
“You can come in,” she said. “But he wants you in a T-shirt, no jacket, nothing on your head, hands up and out, like you said. He says, while you’re in here, if he hears a noise in the hall, he’ll shoot me.”
“Understood.” Max was already stripping down, jacket, holster, weapons, all in a pile on the concrete floor. “I’m going in,” he told Jules.
Jones pulled himself out of the car. “Don’t let him hurt them.”
“I won’t,” Max promised.
It couldn’t have been easy—having to stay out here when Molly was in there, but Jones nodded.
“I’m not getting through to the embassy,” Jules reported.
“Keep trying. Gina,” Max said into the phone, “tell Emilio I’m opening the door from the garage to the house. Keep the phone line open if you can, okay? I’m giving this phone to Jules. I want him to be able to listen in.” He handed it over, muted, his voice also lowered as he looked from Jules to Jones. “If I say fire, you come in fast and shoot to kill. Do you understand?”
Jones nodded.
“Max.” Jules stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t do anything too stupid.”
“Where were you with that advice a year and a half ago?” Max went into the house. “I’m coming down the hall,” he called out loudly, his hands open and out.
Jules Cassidy was here, too?
Gina didn’t have time to wonder how many other members of his team Max had brought with him, or how Jones had managed to get in touch with any of them, because Emilio moved his gun from her side to directly under her chin.
The barrel was cold and heavy. And capable of blowing her head completely off her shoulders if he pulled that trigger.
She stood very still, phone still open in her hands.
But then Max appeared in the doorway to the room.
He glanced quickly around, taking it all in—Molly still sitting on the bed, that gun in Emilio’s hands—before meeting her gaze.
“Hi,” he said, as if they’d run into each other in the cereal aisle of the supermarket.
Except, what was the correct greeting for this type of situation? On top of the etiquette confusion, Gina found herself distracted by how different Max looked.
She found herself thinking the most inane thoughts—that his broken collarbone must’ve been completely healed in order for him to hold his hands up in the air like that.
And maybe it was the way that black T-shirt hugged his upper body and shoulders, or the way he was holding his arms that made his muscles stretch the fabric of his sleeves, but he looked as if he’d gotten completely back into shape during the months she’d been gone.
Back in shape and then some.
But it wasn’t just his super-buffness that made him look like a stranger. It had obviously been a while since he’d last shaved, and thick stubble covered his chin. His dark hair was uncombed and matted, too, as if he’d worn a hat for days on end.
Jeans and sneakers instead of a well-tailored suit—although she’d gotten used to seeing him dressed in casual clothes in the rehab center.
No, it was his eyes that made him look most like a stranger—as well as least like one.
Gina had always loved Max’s eyes. They were bottomless and so exotically dark brown as to seem almost black.
He was looking at her now the way she’d always wanted him to look at her. With nothing hidden. With everything he was feeling right there for her to see.
Fear. Anger. Vulnerability. Frustration. It was all apparent, along with incredible relief.
And a boatload of hope.
“Hey, Max,” she whispered back.
But he’d already focused his attention on Emilio. And that gun. “Step back from her, Mr. Testa. There’s no need for that. Just let her go, take two steps back and point that thing at me.”
“How many are here with you?” Emilio asked. His breathing was ragged, his muscles tense. Gina could feel his heart beating, hard, against her back. Or maybe that was her heart.
“Step away from the girl. Woman,” Max corrected himself with a shake of his head and an apologetic grimace in her direction. “Then we’ll talk.”
“I’ll make the rules,” Emilio’s voice was tight. “I’ve got the gun.”
“I know you don’t want to hurt her,” Max’s tone was soothing, calm, “s
o just aim your weapon at me and—”
“Is Grady Morant here, too?” Emilio asked. “He’s out in the garage, isn’t he? I don’t want him coming in here.”
“He won’t. And if you step away from Gina,” Max repeated, “we’ll discuss the best way for all of us to get to safety.”
Gina found herself praying that Emilio’s finger didn’t tighten on that trigger, that he didn’t shoot her—either intentionally or accidentally. It wasn’t just because she didn’t want her brains sprayed onto the wall. It was because she knew that if Emilio killed her here, like this, Max would never recover.
And she’d already brought way too much pain into his life.
“Right about now,” she told him, “that NYU law school thing is looking like a real missed opportunity.”
He smiled, a brief and rueful twist of his lips. “Yeah.” But he didn’t even glance at her—he was busy staring down Emilio.
Who finally let her go.
Gina stumbled from suddenly having to hold herself up. She went down to her hands and knees, dropping the phone as she scrambled to get some distance between her head and that gun.
Except Emilio now aimed the damn thing at Max.
“Good,” Max said, no doubt for Jules’s benefit. “Keep it right here, right on me.”
“Please don’t shoot him,” Gina begged. “I’d rather be shot myself, than have to—”
“That’s not helping,” Max told her.
“—live through that again,” she finished. “Can’t you just aim your gun at the floor? Please?”
“Max can keep his hands up,” Molly chimed in. “We all want the same thing—to get out of here alive. So let’s just bring this down a notch.”
Emilio lowered his gun.
Relief made Gina’s knees wobble, and she sat on the edge of the bed. “Thank you.” Molly scrunched forward, put her arms around her.
And Max went to work. “Let’s do this. Let me take Gina and Molly down to the dock. We’ll hire a seaplane to take us to the American Embassy in Dili. We’ll just walk out of here. We’ll just walk away. We can all leave at the same time—you can go in one direction, we’ll go in the other. We’re not looking to jam you up, Testa. We just want Gina and Molly to be safe. I can see that you took good care of them. We all appreciate that very much—”
“How did you find me so quickly?” Emilio asked.
“That doesn’t matter,” Max said. “We need to focus—”
“Yes, it does,” Emilio said. “Because I’ve had some time to think. I don’t want the bastards who killed my wife to go unpunished. If you have . . . connections. To your government. To the CIA—I know they’ve been here, on Pulau Meda . . . If that was how you found me, and if you can guarantee . . . What is it called? Amnesty? And perhaps a financial incentive that will allow me to relocate . . . ? I have information I could share.”
Emilio Testa had no doubt figured that if they were willing to cut a deal with Grady Morant, they’d be open to doing the same with just about anybody.
Jones himself didn’t trust the scumbag, but Max and Jules were the ones talking to him—Jules via one cell phone, even as he used the other to keep trying the embassy—as if they were his new best friends. Of course, it was hard to tell with either of them if they really believed Emilio, or if they were just trying to make him think they believed him.
Whatever the case, it was radically different from the negotiating technique Max had used when he’d opened that Hamburg hotel room door to find Jones in the hall.
Still, whatever they were doing, they were doing it right.
“Jones,” Jules called, and he looked up from trying to pick the lock on the trunk of that Impala.
Molly was standing just inside in the doorway that led to the house.
She looked tired and pale, her hair pulled back from her face in a braid. She was dressed for a summer day in Northern Germany—in long pants. She’d rolled up the bottoms to compensate for the Indonesian heat, and she’d tied the sleeves of her sweatshirt around her expanding waistline.
“Ma’am, do you need medical attention?” Jules asked her.
But she spotted Jones.
And ran to him.
And then, oh Jesus, he had his arms around her. “Please tell me—”
“Are you . . . ?” She pulled back, looking him over as thoroughly as he was looking at her.
“I’m all right.” “I’m okay.” They both said it at once, followed by “Are you sure?”
Jones didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Molly did both as he kissed her. But then she winced and he quickly loosened his grip. “You are hurt. I’m going to kill him—”
“No, no—it’s the biopsy.”
Oh, Jesus. He’d actually forgotten. Jones pulled back to look at her. “Is it . . . ?” He couldn’t say it.
“I don’t know.” Molly shook her head. “It takes days to get the results.” She wiped her tears from her face as she tried to smile at him. “I felt the baby move. Gina and I were at dinner, in Hamburg, and I felt him.”
The baby. Jones knew he was supposed to say something, but he couldn’t lie.
“It was so exciting,” she continued. “The waiter gave us free dessert, to celebrate.”
And God knows he couldn’t tell her the truth. He pulled her close—gently—so that she wouldn’t see his face, know what he was thinking.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered instead. “About all of this.”
“I am, too.” When she pulled back from him, she had on her school teacher face. “You shouldn’t be here,” she scolded.
“Yeah, well, neither should you.”
“Although, I don’t even know where here is,” Molly admitted.
“Eastern Indonesia,” he told her. “We’re pretty close to East Timor.”
“Of course we are,” she said. “Of all the lawless islands out there, we’re near the one that’s the most lawless.”
Across the garage, Jules was still working both his and Max’s phones, and keeping an eye on the street. What were they doing inside the house?
Molly answered his unspoken question. “They’re coming—they just have to figure out a way to do it so that Emilio doesn’t feel threatened. I think he’s afraid of you.”
“Smart guy.”
“I’m supposed to remind you that you’re the target and tell you that you should keep your head down. I’m supposed to sit with you in the back seat of the car,” she said, “and, I don’t know, distract you, I guess, with my wifely skills. So that you don’t shoot Emilio. Or something.”
Molly had on her “But Face,” that certain expression that she wore when she was on the verge of disagreeing.
Gina could do a pretty mean “But Face” but Molly was the undisputed queen. It involved eyebrows that were slightly raised, eyes opened wide, breath drawn in—the better to pronounce that slightly percussive B-sound. Her mouth would curl slightly up at the edges, either in appreciation of the argument that was on the verge of starting—for her, arguing was so much fun—or in bemused exasperation.
Right now it was all exasperation.
He pulled her into his arms again and kissed the but out of her. “I love you,” he said. “Let’s get in the car and speed this along. I want to get out of here.”
She lowered her voice, glancing across the garage, over at Jules. “You should get out of here. Right now.”
Jones shook his head. “I’m not leaving without you, babe.”
“You have to.” She was dead serious. “We’re going to the embassy in Dili. If you come along—”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m not leaving until I know you’re safe. It’s a long way to Dili from here.” He pulled her into the car with him.
“But they’ll lock you up if—” she said.
“Probably,” Jones told her. “But only after we’re on our way back to the States.” He kissed her again. “I gambled, Mol, and we lost.”
“Gambled?” She didn’t understand.
&n
bsp; “By trying to get a passport that would let me go home. It was Kraus,” he told her. “I still don’t know who’s behind all this, or what they want, but I do know that Gretta Kraus sold me out.”
Molly nodded. “Emilio found us there, at her workshop.”
“I know,” he said grimly. “I saw the footage from a security camera. That was a terrorist cell that came in shooting and nearly killed you, by the way. Goddamn it.”
“Lord,” she said. “That was unbelievable. I didn’t know what was happening at first and . . .”
“Unbelievable,” Jones corrected her, “is when someone opens fire in a church or a shopping mall. When it’s in the studio of a professional forger, where criminals go to reinvent themselves, it’s a little less unbelievable. You shouldn’t have been there.”
But it was just as he’d suspected. She’d been worried about him.
“I wanted to warn you,” Molly said. “I knew we were being followed. We spotted Emilio in the hallway outside our hotel room when we came back from church. I was afraid that—”
“I would have taken care of myself.” He wanted to shake her. “You should have gone straight to the embassy.”
“But that was the one place I was absolutely certain you wouldn’t be,” she retorted.
“How did you even find the studio?” He’d purposely not given her Kraus’s address.
“We went to a . . . less than upscale establishment—it was part pawn shop, part brothel, I think. We just pretended we needed passports to get to New York.”
Jesus. He could only imagine the kind of dive it was. Just the thought of it made him want to . . . What was it Gina always said? Shit monkeys. Although, if it had been Jones trying to make contact with Gretta Kraus, it would’ve taken a week and a half, and way more than one visit to one crappy whorehouse.
“We walked in,” Molly told him, “using fake accents, Excuse please to help . . . big puppy-dog eyes . . .” She demonstrated. “Plus a hacking cough to make sure no one got too close. I didn’t even need to show any cleavage.”
Jesus. He, too, had a facial expression that he found himself wearing occasionally. It was called “What-the-Fuck Face.”
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