But the story wasn’t over. “Gina stuck her jacket under her shirt,” Molly was telling him, “and pretended she was pregnant, too. That was our character motivation—our reason for wanting to go to America. So our babies could be born there, right?”
She was so damned pleased with herself for having character motivation when she went into a brothel that was no doubt filled with the worst examples of humankind that the world had to offer. Thieves. Pimps and slavers. Drug users, pushers, killers, rapists . . .
“She just said No speak English and Sprech’ kein Deutsch and pretended to start to cry whenever anyone looked in her direction,” Molly finished her story. “She was brilliant.” It was her turn to kiss him. “Please go,” she said. “Let’s plan to meet somewhere after this is all over. After I go home and do the hospital thing.”
Do the hospital thing. Like ridding her body of cancer was going to be a walk in the park. And like it had a guaranteed happy ending.
But Molly was determined. “Somewhere like Perth or Taiwan or maybe Kuala Lampur—we could help with the tsunami cleanup. They still need volunteers.”
“I can’t,” Jones told her.
“Of course you can—”
“No,” he said. “Even if you could convince me that you were safe from here on in, I wouldn’t leave. I sold my soul to the devil to find you, Mol.”
She didn’t understand.
“I made a deal with Max,” he explained. “Me for you and Gina. Unlike some people, at least he doesn’t want me dead.”
It was a bad attempt at a joke, and of course she didn’t laugh.
But she stopped asking him to run away, as if she truly believed that he was a man of honor, a man who kept his word.
Over on the other side of the garage, Jules was arguing with Max over the phone.
“No,” he was saying. “I will.” Pause. “No. I’m doing it. Someone’s got to stay with Gina and Molly and—”
They were having a testosterone-off. Apparently there was a dangerous job that needed to be done by a hero.
Man of honor that he was, Jones stayed right there in the car, his arms around his wife.
Jules made an exasperated noise. “No. I’m in charge, so zip it so I can tell you how this is going to go down.”
The gay guy had balls.
“We’ll get a lawyer,” Molly told Jones, bringing him back to the yawning black hole of uncertainty that was their future.
“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile as he gazed into her eyes, praying that she wouldn’t see the terror that gripped him every time he thought of losing her.
But even if they walked, right now, through a portal that led directly to her mother’s home in Iowa, there was still a chance he’d have to bury Molly in the next few years.
Jones raised his voice, calling to Jules. “We need to get moving. What’s taking so long?”
Jules got another busy signal, and finally gave up trying to call the embassy, pocketing his cell phone.
It was time to go.
He checked his weapons, wishing for the eight hundredth time that he had more ammo.
His consolation prize was a hat. A battered fedora that looked as if it had blown off of Humphrey Bogart during the filming of Key Largo. Sucked up into the atmosphere during the movie’s hurricane, it had ended up here, on the other side of the world, sixty years later.
On his head.
Even though it had been enshrined in a closet inside the house, it kind of smelled as if it had spent about three of those decades at the bottom of a birdcage.
Yesirree. It was almost as fun to wear as the brown leather flight jacket.
Which really wasn’t fair to the flight jacket. It was a gorgeously cared-for antique that didn’t smell at all. And it definitely worked for him, in terms of some of his flyboy fantasies. But the day had turned into a scorcher. It was just shy of a bazillion degrees in the shade.
He needed mittens or perhaps a wool scarf to properly accessorize his impending heat stroke.
“Today, playing the role of Indiana Jones, aka Grady Morant, is Jules Cassidy,” he said, as he slipped his arms into the sleeves.
Was anyone really going to be fooled by this? Jones was so much taller than he was.
But really, the big money question was, was anyone out there watching so that they could be fooled?
Emilio Testa was convinced there was.
He believed that if he were seen driving away from his house, holding another man at gunpoint, then whoever was watching would assume he had Grady Morant in his custody.
Theory number two—the first being that there were indeed people watching—was that said watchers would immediately leap into their own vehicles and follow Emilio. And if they were intercepted? Whoopsie, no Grady Morant in this car—only Jules.
Meanwhile, Jones and the others could leave in the Impala, unnoticed.
Theory number three was that a car the size of a battlecruiser could actually go unnoticed, but okay.
The agreed-upon plan had them taking two cars, with the same final destination—the dock down at the harbor.
Jules and Emilio, heading out first, would meet a soon-to-be-arriving seaplane, owned by a man Emilio swore could be trusted. He’d fly them over to the American Embassy in Dili, East Timor.
The plan had the others hanging back, waiting for Jules to call with the all-clear.
Provided, of course, that all was clear.
There was still a significant amount of mistrust on both ends. For example, despite Emilio’s insistence that they were all on the same side now, he’d refused to surrender his weapon.
And Jules didn’t like being a downer, but there were some rather squishy, unexplained spots in E’s drama-laden story of kidnapping and murder.
Such as, what about the fact that Jules, Max, and Morant had all entered the house via the open garage door a solid fifteen minutes ago? After that white van had vanished with a watcher-awakening squeal of tires on the potholed road?
Emilio’s response had been to leap upon this point and use it as an argument for their immediate departure.
Okay. But hey, what about that white van? Who were the people driving it, and where did they go in such a rush?
Emilio told them that his assistant, Anton, was taking Emilio’s daughter-in-law and grandson to safety.
Okay, except the CIA report had Emilio getting married only ten years ago. That was some precocious son—married, with a child, at age nine?
Pointing out the holes in Emilio’s story wasn’t going to speed things along, so Jules kept that comment to himself.
Negotiating with an armed gunman was more about the end than the means, and separating Molly and Gina from Emilio and his deadly weapon was their priority here.
Jules was still a little foggy on exactly who the “they” were—both they-the-watchers and they-to-whom-the-watchers-were-reporting, but it didn’t matter at this point.
Emilio had referred to a contact he had with a man named Ram, but it wasn’t quite clear whether this Ram had taken over for Chai, the recently deceased drug lord who’d had it in for Grady Morant, or whether Ram was working for the Indonesian government.
Of course, on this particular island, it was entirely possible he was doing both.
It would, no doubt, all get sorted out if and when they reached the sanctuary of the American Embassy.
Although yes, just to spice things up, Jules still hadn’t made contact with the East Timor embassy in Dili. He’d called the diplo-folks in Jakarta, too, as well as the CIA office there, but all he got were relentless busy signals. Yashi, too, added to the festive international goatfuck atmosphere by failing to pick up from his desk back in D.C.
Whoo-hoo.
But finally, Gina emerged from the house. Emilio was holding tightly to her arm, his weapon pressed against her back. Max was several steps behind them, looking as if he were about to give birth to a pricker bush.
The E-meister looked much as he had in the video foota
ge. Trim. Well-groomed. Even up close, he didn’t look a day over fifty-five. Well, okay, his neck looked sixty. His cologne was nice, but it was applied a tad too heavily.
The man knew exactly how to ensure cooperation—by maintaining the least possible distance between the barrel of his handgun and his hostage—currently Gina.
If Emilio’s finger tightened on that trigger, there was no chance at all that he would miss.
“Thank you for doing this,” Gina said to Jules.
Yeah, like he would even consider letting Max go with Emilio.
And it wasn’t just because Emilio was armed and dangerous and Max was no longer an agent of the U.S. Government.
Jules had listened in on nearly every word exchanged while they’d been back there together, and it was more than obvious that Max had yet to pull Gina into his arms and do his imitation of the Han Solo and Princess Leia big-moment kiss from The Empire Strikes Back.
Maybe when Jules and the E-man walked out of the garage and climbed into that ancient Escort—which turned out to be part of the Testa fleet—Max would take the opportunity to plant a big, wet one on this woman that he still so obviously adored.
Or maybe not.
“Sweetie, I love the haircut,” Jules told Gina as he gave Max back his cell phone. “You look fabulous for a woman who’s been dead for five days.”
“What?” she said, but it was time to go.
“Max’ll fill you in,” he said. There. There was no way Max was going to be able to tell Gina about receiving that report of her death without getting a little misty-eyed. At which point Gina would, at the very least, throw her arms around him. If Max couldn’t manage to turn that into a truthrevealing kiss, he didn’t deserve the woman. “Ow,” he added as Emilio pressed his weapon into Jules’s kidney.
“Sorry.” Emilio managed to put the right amount of apology into his voice, but he was obviously so stressed that he didn’t quite get the right facial expression to match. It was pretty odd. Particularly when he jabbed Jules again. “Let’s go.”
Wow, wasn’t this going to be fun?
Max, meanwhile, had stepped protectively in front of Gina. He caught and held Jules’s gaze. “We’ll wait for your call.” Silently, he sent another message entirely. If Emilio gave Jules any trouble, he should shoot him.
Never mind the fact that Emilio was the one with the drawn weapon. Never mind that Jules’s hands were out and empty, and that he’d have a major bullet hole in his body if he so much as put said hands near his pockets.
Despite the seeming disadvantage, Max had unshakable faith in Jules’s ability to gain the upper hand.
It was quite possibly the most glorious moment of Jules’s entire career—here in this musty sweatbox of a garage with some dickhead jamming a pistol into his back.
“See you soon,” Jules promised Max.
He pulled his hat down over his face, held his hands out slightly in front of him.
And away they went.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Max watched as Testa’s Escort sputtered and coughed and finally pulled off down the street, Jules behind the steering wheel.
He turned. Gina was standing there, holding on to herself, looking at him as if he’d just killed her puppy.
“He’ll be all right,” he said.
“What did Jules mean back in the other room when he said you’re not his boss anymore?” she asked.
“He meant I’m not his boss anymore,” Max said. “Look, we’ve got to move fast, so—”
“Sorry. You’re right. It’s just . . . It’s nice to see you, too. It’s been a while.” She was clearly pissed at him, which was just grand, as she turned toward the car.
Where Jones was pulling Molly out of the back seat.
“We’re leaving on foot,” Max explained before Gina could even ask. “And it is nice to see you.” More than she could possibly imagine.
“On foot? But . . .”
He knew she’d heard him tell Emilio that they’d leave in the Impala.
“We’re not taking the car,” he clarified, “because he wanted us to take the car. We don’t trust him.” He turned to Jones. “Can you get us to that airfield that you found last night?”
“Absolutely.”
Gina wasn’t happy. “But you let Jules go with him.”
“I didn’t let Jules do anything. Besides, he can take care of himself. Do we have something Molly and Gina can use to put over their heads?” Max asked Jones.
“What, like paper bags?” Molly quipped. “I know we must look bad, but—”
“Scarves,” Max said. “To hide your hair.” How could she take the time to make a joke? But the two American women were going to stand out anyway, in their western clothes, even with their hair covered. Maybe it didn’t matter. Except Molly’s reddish hair was so noticeable.
“Maybe there’s something in here.” Jones had found a crowbar, and was using it to try to pop the Impala’s trunk.
“We could look in the house,” Gina suggested.
“No,” Max decided. “I don’t want to take the time. Let’s just—”
“Whoa.” Jones had gotten the trunk open.
Molly went to look. “Dear Lord.”
Gina was slightly less reverent. “Holy shit.”
Max was silent as he stared down at the collection of weaponry that filled the car’s trunk. There was an abundance of everything from handguns to an array of your basic assault rifles to M3 and HK-MP5 submachine guns to Remington sniper rifles complete with scopes, to some extremely deadly-looking shotguns.
There was enough there to outfit a small army.
Or a dozen terrorist cells.
His gut had told him not to trust Emilio Testa. He just hadn’t realized how much not to trust him.
“So I guess that ‘Poor me, they kidnapped and killed my wife’ thing was just a story,” Jones said.
A well-executed story. Emilio had had his choice of weapons, yet he’d let them believe that he—and whoever had gone tearing out of here in that white van—had only one small handgun between them. Max almost admired the man. Almost.
Gina said, “Jules is with this guy.” As if he’d forgotten.
“Yeah.” Max took out his phone to try to call Jules even as, like Jones, he reached in and helped himself to one of those HKs and a generous amount of ammunition.
But, damn it, this wasn’t his phone, it was Jules’s. Somehow they’d gotten switched. Which meant Max had to call his own number, which he never did . . . He found himself on Jules’s contact list under B. Not for Bhagat, but for Boss, Max. He dialed.
“Let’s move.” Phone to his ear, taking up the rear, he hit the street running.
Emilio opened his cell phone as Jules took the road down the mountain, toward the harbor.
The E-man had lowered his gun after they’d left the plaza, as they’d taken the turn onto this narrow, winding road that was surrounded by jungle.
It was then Jules gave some consideration to the fact that Emilio might be telling the truth. It became possible that the next few minutes were going to play out exactly as they’d planned, with a relatively uneventful drive to the dock.
“Excuse me,” Jules said now. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t make any calls until we arrive—”
“Yes,” Emilio said into his phone. He wasn’t just pointedly ignoring Jules. He’d also raised his weapon again.
Wasn’t that just great.
Emilio spoke, rapid-fire, in a language that Jules couldn’t understand. But he didn’t need a graduate degree in Portunesian, or whatever this odd mix of Portuguese and Indonesian was called, to guess what Emilio was saying. Change of plans. Morant’s at my house, waiting for an all-clear call, at which time he’ll be heading for the dock in my blue Chevy Impala. Get him, now.
But then he did switch to English, as if someone else had come on to the line. “No,” Emilio said angrily, “No, that’s wrong. I got him onto the island which was all I promised to d
o. It’s now up to you . . .”
In the pocket of that leather flight jacket, Jules’s own cell phone started to vibrate. That was weird. He’d set Max’s phone to ring silently, not his . . . Shit. He’d given Max the wrong phone.
He reached for it, but Emilio barked an order. “Hands on the steering wheel, where I can see them!”
He’d apparently thought Jules was going for a weapon. Which, come to think of it, was a damn good idea.
Emilio couldn’t shoot Jules, because Jules was driving. The road was crumbling and narrow, with hairpin turns, and guardrails that had rusted through in places. It wouldn’t take much to spin out and take a super-express route down the mountain.
No, Emilio couldn’t shoot Jules. But Jules could shoot Emilio.
“Pull over,” Emilio ordered, after he finished his conversation and closed his cell phone.
“I don’t think so,” Jules said, and floored it.
“Damn it,” Max said.
It was not on Molly’s list of words she was hoping to hear from him right now. Like, “Hooray!” for example. Followed quickly with, “We’re safe, we can stop running!” And then, “Who wants barbeque for lunch, followed by chocolate cake?”
She’d ended the morning-sickness phase of her day, and entered the ravenously hungry part.
“I just lost all signal for my cell,” Max said instead.
“Maybe we’re getting too close to a tower,” Gina panted. Running uphill clearly wasn’t on her fun list, either.
They’d spent a lot of time running, ever since Molly’d gotten stitched up after her biopsy.
“What the hell is that?” Jones asked.
What was what? They skidded to a stop on the dusty dirt road. Molly bent over, trying to catch her breath as . . .
That was the unmistakable sound of an approaching truck. It was still out of sight on the street ahead of them, and ten to one it wasn’t an eighteen-wheeler with a shipment of festive paper plates and napkins for the local Wal-Mart.
“Oh, shit,” Jones said.
From Molly’s previous time spent in this part of the world, she knew that the sound of a truck—gears grinding, engine rumbling—meant only one thing.
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