The lobby was mostly empty, and much cooler than the sun-drenched street. There was a bench, off to the side, beneath a brightly colored wall mural.
“Let’s sit down,” Molly said.
She tried to tug him down with her, but he resisted.
If he was scared before, he was now petrified.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said. “Let’s sit. Molly, whatever you have to tell me, just please tell me.”
“I sort of don’t know how to.” She had tears in her eyes.
So Jones sat beside her. He laced his fingers with hers. “You know I love you, right?”
She nodded.
“Well, I don’t love you for your breasts,” he told her. “If one—or both of them’s got to go, then they’ve got to go. It’s not going to change the way I feel about you. It’s not going to change anything.”
Molly started to cry.
“Hey,” he said, “that was supposed to make you, well, not exactly happy, but at least—”
She kissed him.
Happier.
She pulled back to look at him. “I love you, too,” she said, and somehow that unleashed a new flood of tears.
“Molly, you’re really scaring me,” Jones said. “Did the doctor give you a death sentence or something?”
“It’s just . . .” She shook her head, looking down at their hands, clasped together. She exhaled before she spoke. “Remember the night that you came into the mess tent, and I realized it was you and I dropped my tray?”
It was Jones’s turn to nod. He had no idea where she was going with this.
“And then, later, I came to your tent, and we kind of had . . . half-assed sex?”
He nodded again. Half-assed sex . . . He looked at her, realization dawning. Was she saying . . . ? They’d had half-assed sex without a condom. “But I didn’t come. I mean, I remember that part really well.”
“Apparently,” she said, “you didn’t have to.”
Jones sat in silence for several long moments before he found the air to ask, “Are you serious? You’re . . .”
“Pregnant,” she said. “Not quite four months pregnant.”
Which meant in five months . . . Oh, shit.
“I thought you were, you know, in whatchamacallit,” he said. “Perimenopause.”
“Yes,” Molly said. “I am. But apparently the last few months I missed my periods because of . . . this.” She gazed at him, searchingly. “Are you completely horrified?”
“Shit yeah,” he said, “but not for the reason you think. Can you be treated for cancer while you’re pregnant?”
And there it was. She looked away from him. “It’s not so much can I as
will
I. The doctor said that after the first trimester, some chemotherapy drugs pose no known danger to the baby.”
But. Jones knew that look Molly was wearing on her face way too well. He said it for her. “But . . . ?”
“They haven’t done enough long-term tests. I’m not going to poison this child.”
And there it was. The doctor hadn’t given Molly a death sentence. But she was potentially giving one to herself.
“This should be happy news,” she said. “That I’m pregnant. It shouldn’t be an add-on to, ‘the doctor wants me to go to Hamburg for a biopsy.’ ”
Jones shook his head. “Surely it can’t be good for the baby to just—”
She knew where he was going. “My having breast cancer won’t harm the baby.”
“Are you sure?” he said heatedly. “Have they done enough long fucking term tests on that?”
“Shhh,” she said, glancing over at the security guard standing by the front door. “Come on—”
“No,” Jones said. He stood up. “No, Molly. You can’t honestly tell me that you want to have a baby that you won’t be around to watch grow up.”
“We don’t know that. If the biopsy comes back and it’s only stage one or two, then waiting a few months—”
“Five months,” he said. “While the cancer is growing at an increased pace, feeding on all the estrogen and growth hormones that your body is making. It’s insane to—”
She stood, too. “We don’t have a choice anymore.”
“Yes, we do!”
Now she was mad, too. “Okay,” she said. “Yes. We have a choice. It’s
my
choice. And I choose to do more research, talk to more doctors, and go to Hamburg for a biopsy. Is that okay with you?”
What the fuck was he doing? Arguing bitterly with a woman—his woman—who had just been told she could well have cancer. How could that be helping? Yes, he was scared, but she had to be, too.
Jones reached for her. Held her tightly. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s okay. Molly, God, I’m so sorry.”
She clung to him. “I am, too.”
He was not going to let her die. He was not going to lose her.
But Jones knew, as he held her, that there was really very little he could do.
Yeah, he’d already done far more than his share.
P
ULAU
M
EDA
, I
NDONESIA
E
XACT
D
ATE
: U
NKNOWN
P
RESENT
D
AY
Molly had been asleep for quite a few hours when Gina heard a soft knock on the door.
She’d been dozing herself, but she sat up now, her heart pounding.
At first, she’d been too busy to be scared. Helping Molly take off her soiled clothes and washing her face. Peeling back the edge of the bandage covering her biopsy stitches, making sure it was healing nicely and not infected. Tucking her under the cool cotton sheets on one side of that big bed.
She’d been sleeping on a camping cot for so long, an actual king-sized bed seemed ridiculously large. Did anyone on this planet really need a bed that big?
Gina had showered and rinsed out their clothes in the sink. No way was she putting them out in the hall for the invisible daughter-in-law to launder. If she did that, they might never get them back, making it that much harder for them to make a break for it.
Of course, in Molly’s current condition, she was unable to run. If there only were a way to get her out of here . . .
If Gina were alone, she would’ve risked it already. She was taller than Crowbar Guy.
The door now opened. Just a crack at first, then wider, and Gina wrapped her robe more tightly around her.
As far as robes went, it was very nice, like something from an expensive hotel. But gleaming white, it practically glowed in the dark. Making a run while wearing it would be about as effective as having a neon hat that flashed “Here I am!”
Gina hadn’t wanted to put it on—this
wasn’t
a hotel, it was a prison—but the air conditioning had been set to a temperature that was a little too cool. She tightened the belt as she got to her feet.
It was dark in the hall, and she couldn’t tell who was standing out there until he spoke.
“Anton said you refused the tray of food he brought.” It was Gun Man. The Anton to whom he referred must be Tiny Crowbar Guy.
There were only two men holding them prisoner, with one gun between them. Gun Man had spoken of a third—that daughter-in-law—but Gina hadn’t so much as heard the whisper of a female voice. It was possible he’d mentioned her to make them feel more relaxed. Like, they were going to think everything would be okay because one of their guards was a woman.
As if that made a bit of difference.
Gina wished, for the four thousandth time, that Molly was awake and alert, and ready to run like hell.
“We’re not hungry,” she lied as Gun Man came farther into the room. She was actually starving. But if
she
were holding two prisoners captive with only one helper and a single gun between then, she’d lace their food with tranquilizers.
“Ah,” he said. “But when you do get hungry . . .” He was carrying a bag, the netting strained from the weight of its contents. He began unloading it on the dresser top. It was food—about a dozen cans of varying sizes. He stacked them neatly, and put a small, handcrank can-opener on top with a flourish. “If you should like any of this heated, we of course stand ready—”
“No,” Gina said. She stood up, moving so that she blocked his view of Molly. She looked too vulnerable lying there like that, asleep, one smooth shoulder exposed.
“As you wish.”
“We wish,” Gina said sharply, “to go back to our hotel in Hamburg.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He actually looked apologetic, but Gina knew better.
Her legs were shaking, but she locked her knees and lifted her chin. “Who are you working for?” she asked. “Whatever they’re paying you, we’ll pay you more.”
He sighed heavily. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“It can be,” she said, even though she knew in her heart that this man wasn’t holding them for the money. This room was too nice, and his clothes—his entire appearance—screamed of wealth.
“You should expect to be here for a while,” he said. “Please let me know if you need anything.” He started for the door.
What Gina needed was Max.
God only knew where he was, what he was doing—if he even knew she was in danger.
Why would he? The only person who knew that she and Molly were missing was Leslie Pollard, aka David Jones, aka Grady Morant.
All things considered, Leslie-David-Grady was unlikely to turn to the FBI for help.
He would come for them, for Molly. Gina didn’t doubt that for a heartbeat. But it wasn’t going to be easy for him to get here—wherever here was.
It could take him weeks to find them.
Months.
For now at least, Gina was on her own.
Gun Man was going out the door, but Gina stopped him.
“What’s your name?”
“Emilio,” he told her.
“I’m Molly,” she lied. “Look, my friend is really sick. As a show of good faith—”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” he cut her off, already knowing she was going to ask him to let Molly go.
“Why?” Gina persisted. It didn’t have anything to do with being selfless and courageous, although if Max were listening in, she knew he’d think otherwise. He’d be wrong. It was all about how fast Molly could run in her current condition. Which was not fast at all. Gina’s chances of escaping were slim to none if she had to drag Molly with her.
“She says she’s Molly, too,” he said. “Which one of you do I believe?”
“Me,” Gina said. “She’s a liar. I mean, come on. Look at her. She’s almost old enough to be my mother. Do you really think that she and Jones—” She corrected herself. “Grady—”
Again, he interrupted. “I think she is a beautiful woman, and that true love laughs in the face of convention,” he told her. “I also think that she far more fits the description of this woman of Grady Morant’s than you do. I believe, therefore, that you are the liar.”
Figures she’d get a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Yoda for a captor.
“Why are you doing this?” Gina asked. “You seem like a decent man—”
“They have my wife,” he said, and with a nod, went back out the door, closing it gently behind him.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
C-130 T
ROOP
T
RANSPORT
—28,000
FEET OVER
P
OLAND
J
UNE
22, 2005
P
RESENT
D
AY
It had been years since Jones had been a passenger on a U.S. military transport plane.
He’d never expected to board one again—at least not without handcuffs and leg shackles.
And never, not in his wildest dreams, had he imagined being asked, after achieving cruising altitude, by a gay FBI agent, no less—what was the world coming to?—whether he wanted cream and sugar in his coffee.
“Black’s fine,” he said.
As Jules Cassidy vanished toward the galley, Jones watched Max, who was talking on his cell phone on the other side of the cabin. One of the calls he was making was to some civilian security team called Troubleshooters Incorporated. He was hoping to hire some backup.
From the look on his face, the news he was getting wasn’t good.
“You okay?” the little gay agent asked as he came back with the coffee in a styrofoam cup, genuine concern in his eyes.
“Yeah,” Jones said. “Thanks.” If being worried shitless about Molly could be called okay.
Jules sat down in the seat next to him. They had the entire space to themselves—not a lot of troops being moved today. At least not to Indonesia. The fact that they were in the air at all was entirely due to Max’s clout. It was possible that one of the phone calls the former FBI bigwig had taken—out on the tarmac, after Jones had managed to completely embarrass himself—had been the U.S. vice president.
“We’re going to find her,” Jules said. For someone who was not only severely height challenged, but prettier than two-thirds of the women on the planet, Jules Cassidy exuded a christload of confidence. “Wherever she is, we’ll get her out. Safely. Gina, too.”
“With just the three of us?” Jones wasn’t convinced. While he had to admit that there probably never was a good day for a terrorist attack, the timing of this one really sucked. Jules’s request for support from SEAL Team Sixteen had already been denied.
“If we have to,” Jules said, and he wasn’t just bullshitting. He really believed it.
Over across the cabin, Max was still talking on the phone. Lines of weariness etched his face.
“I’m not sure what to call you,” Jules continued, pulling Jones’s attention back. “You know, what name to use. You have so many.”
“You can call me whatever the hell you want.” He took the lid off his coffee.
“You just . . . seemed uncomfortable before, when Max called you Morant.”
Jones took a sip of coffee. It burned all the way down. “And my discomfort level is of concern to you because . . . ?”
Jules smiled. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been a team player, Grady, hasn’t it?”
“You know,” he said, “I think I
would
prefer it if you called me Jones.”
“Not feeling so much like Grady anymore, huh? That must be weird.” Jules’s eyes were sympathetic over the top of his coffee cup as he took a sip. “Plus, you were using the name Dave Jones when you first met Molly. I can see how that might make you attached to it. What does
she
call you?”
“None of your fucking business.”
Jules sighed. “I know that you’re worried—”
“You have no idea,” Jones said.
“You’re right,” Jules told him mildly. “I don’t. Except there are people that I love and worry about, too, so I can imagine how hard this is for you. If it’s any help, my Aunt Sue is a breast cancer survivor. And about a dozen of the women in my mother’s PFLAG chapter. People survive this.”
Jones was plenty familiar with different leadership techniques—everything from the fear-of-pain method used by someone like Chai, to Max’s holier-than-thou, double-dare method of leadership that Gina had so often talked about. Apparently working for Max Bhagat was a coveted assignment in the Bureau, but an agent had to earn it—even after they were on the man’s team.
Let’s just see if you’re good enough to keep up, and if you are, maybe I’ll let you kiss my ring.
And then there was the touchy-feely leadership techniques that Jules employed. As a medic in the army, Jones had played the “we’re all buddies” card many times himself.
How you doing, soldier? You’re going to be just fine. Where you from? Looks like you’re going to have a visit home if you just hang on a little bit longer . . .
“Spare me the pep talk,” Jones said. “Stop trying to handle me.” He realized what he’d said. “I mean that figuratively,” he quickly added. “I’m not accusing you of . . .”
Jules just sat back, smiling, and let him flounder.
“If you want, we could go through a list of things not to say,” he said after Jones had sputtered to a stop. “
You don’t know dick,
for example. If you ever feel the urge to say that, substitute
shit. Shit
’ll work.”
Jones laughed despite himself.
Jules’s smile was relaxed. Easygoing. He was completely comfortable with himself. It was hard not to like him, or at least be impressed by him.
“Just . . . stop trying to get inside my head, all right?” Jones said.
“FYI, I’m on your side,” Jules told him. He glanced at Max, still talking on his phone across the cabin. The ‘bad cop’ to Jules’s ‘good cop?’
Jones put what they were both thinking into words. “As opposed to Max, who seriously wants to damage me. Thanks for, you know, keeping him in line.”
Jules laughed again. But his smile faded as he looked at Jones’s collection of bruises. “You two really got into it, back in the hotel, huh?” It wasn’t really a question, and he didn’t wait for Jones to answer it. “He didn’t hurt you too badly, did he?”
Jones shook his head. It was actually embarrassing, considering he was so much bigger than Max. Taller, heavier. “I’m fine.”
“I can just imagine him, like, throttling you to the point of . . .” He looked more closely at the bruises on Jones’s throat. “Did he actually . . . ?”
“I’m fine.”
But Jules seemed a little shaken as he gazed over at Max again.
They sat quietly for several minutes, then Jules cleared his throat.
“A few years ago,” he said, “Max had me do a low-profile on you.”
“I know what you’re going to ask next,” Jones said, “and the answer is yes, I really did work for Chai.”
“Oh,” Jules said. “No. There’s no question about that. We have plenty of proof tying you to illegal activities—not just through Chai, but a whole parade of Indonesian drug lords, gun runners, and garden-variety thieves.”
“Great,” Jones said. “That’s . . . just great.” His ten to twenty years in prison just increased a decade. Or three.
“Any idea which one of them might be behind this kidnapping?” Jules finished the last of his coffee. “Any grudges or vendettas or even just hard feelings—”
“It might be quicker to make a list of the ones who
don’t
have hard feelings.”
“We’ve got a long flight. Go crazy.” The FBI agent took a notepad from his pocket and handed it to Jones. Somewhere along their route, Jules had changed into jeans and a T-shirt, with a lightweight jacket to conceal his sidearm. He now fished for a pen. “I want to run a cross-check of records—see if anyone on your list comes up in connection with our kidnapper. Who, by the way, we’ve identified as Emilio Testa. Ring any bells?”
“None.” Jones still had Molly’s pen. He found it first. Waved it at Jules.
Who said, “I think Max must’ve stolen mine. Bastard. Anyway. Testa, Emilio Guiseppe. Born in Northern Italy, moved to Sri Lanka when he was in his late twenties. This was back during the Age of Aquarius—he’s currently sixty-two. I estimated fifty, so he must be eating right. CIA in Jakarta had a pretty thick file on him. Lots of low-level stuff—fencing stolen goods, conning tourists, black marketeering. He did some informing, too. He’d drop our spooky cousins some breaking news, they’d provide occasional Get Out of Jail Free cards. Oh, here’s something you’ll like: About a dozen years ago, the authorities suspected Testa was involved in a kidnapping ring, but they didn’t want to touch it, because the victims were always returned. That’s good news, right? Although maybe not, considering that what he wants in exchange for the women is you. And we don’t want to give him that.”
Yeah, because they wanted to make sure Jones spent the next fifty years locked up. Terrific.
“Testa’s allegedly been out of the game,” Jules continued, “living clean—according to my contact—for about ten years now. Which is maybe why you never ran into him. Rumor is he got married, settled down, had kids. Retired from his life of petty crime.”
“Not anymore,” Jones said, adding the self-appointed “General” Badaruddin to the list he was scribbling, along with Chai’s former dungeon master, Ram Subandrio. Last he knew, both were still alive and kicking. Although things changed fast in that part of the world.
“True,” Jules agreed. “And what are the big three motivators, you know—to make a person forsake his retirement?” He didn’t wait for Jones to respond. “Fear, pleasure, and/or greed.”
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.