Over the Edge (38 page)
Surprise and confusion flitted across her beautiful face. “It’s your birthday?”
“No, but it should be. It sure as hell feels like it.”
She nodded. “Happy birthday to me, too.”
Still looking into his eyes, she smiled.
Sam somehow managed to smile, too. And he kissed her. Because he knew that tonight wasn’t over. Not yet, anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sixteen
Gina was getting frustrated. “It just doesn’t make sense.” She could hear an echo of Max’s warning. Whatever you do, don’t insult them. Don’t make them angry. Don’t give them any excuses to lash out at you.
But Bob the terrorist wasn’t insulted. He smiled. Shrugged. He looked exactly like the guys who came to her dorm room to hang out, maybe listen to music. Easygoing. Too cool to get angry about anything.
“Not much in this life makes sense,” he pointed out.
She tried another tack. “What could it hurt,” she asked, “to let the women and children off the plane?”
She was holding the radio microphone on her lap, and the send button was pressed. Somewhere, in one of those ugly buildings that she could see out the windows, Max was listening to every word they said.
Bob scratched his neck. Yawned. Gestured to her bare legs. “Do you know the police would arrest you for wearing that in my town?” His smile seemed apologetic. “That’s if the . . .” He muttered something in his own language, searching for the word. “People,” he said. “The regular people, not the army or the police—”
“Civilians?” she offered.
“Yes.” He gave her a brilliant smile. “Thank you. Civilians.” He pronounced it with four distinct syllables. “That’s if the civilians didn’t beat you to death, first.”
Nice.
“Well, these shorts are acceptable in America,” she told him. “They’re even considered conservative.”
“I know what’s acceptable in America. I watch TV. I watch Dawson’s Creek and Buffy. I watched Survivor and MTV.”
Gina couldn’t believe it. “They have MTV in Kazbekistan? Where women are killed for wearing shorts in public?”
“Of course not,” he said. “But I have some friends who have access to a satellite dish. We watch what we want. Purely in an attempt to understand the evils of Western thinking, of course.”
He was making a joke, wasn’t he? He’d all but winked. Gina laughed despite the tension that was increasing hourly throughout the plane. Snarly Al had been about ready to jump out of his own skin just a short time ago, and Bob had banished him from the cockpit.
Bob was official barometer of the hijackers. As long as he was relaxed, there was no reason to be more afraid than usual. And as long as Al stayed away from her, she was safe. If someone was going to hurt her, it wasn’t going to be Bob.
He liked her. She knew he did. If they’d met on campus, they would have been friends.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked him. “How did you end up here? Holding a gun on innocent people. I don’t understand.”
He gazed at her silently for a moment, but then he shook his head. “You know, I watched Survivor.”
“Yeah,” Gina said impatiently. “You said.” She didn’t want to talk about TV shows. She wanted to get some of these people off the plane. “You and ninety percent of the free world’s population.”
“The whole time I watched it,” he told her, “I was thinking, they wouldn’t last a day here. Susan and Gervase and Richard. What they survived was nothing.”
When he looked over at her, she could have sworn there were tears in his eyes.
Gina’s heart lodged in her throat. What atrocities had he lived through? What horrors had he witnessed on a daily basis? She waited for him to say more, but he was silent.
“Please,” she whispered. “Let the women and children off the plane. Let everyone off the plane. You’ve got me as a hostage—you don’t need them.”
Bob gazed at her, his expression unreadable.
But then the radio squealed, and she quickly released the talk button on the microphone.
And Max’s voice came over the speaker, strong and clear. “Flight 232, come in. Over.”
Bob wiped his eyes. Squared his shoulders. “Ask him if our demands are being met,” he instructed her.
Crap, she had been on the verge of some kind of breakthrough with him. She knew it. And yet she knew why Max had interrupted them. Never offer anything that you aren’t immediately prepared to deliver. And never make it personal.
Gina thumbed the mike. “Bob would like to know the status of their demands, please. Over.”
“The senator—your father—is in a meeting with the president,” Max said. She knew it was total bullshit. The United States didn’t negotiate with terrorists. The end. This guy they wanted released from prison? He wasn’t going anywhere. Not a chance. The senator could meet with the man in the moon and it wouldn’t change a thing.
“Bob,” Max spoke directly to the hijacker. “It’s time for a good faith gesture. Something big, something generous. Something that will tell the U.S. government that you’re serious about keeping the people on that plane safe and alive. Something like—send Karen off the plane. Let her walk off, Bob. Let her just walk away. That’ll send a positive message, I guarantee it. Over.”
“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.”
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