Point of No Return (16 page)

W
hat was taking them so long? Mae sat in the prince's darkened helo, ready to fire it up as soon as Artyom gave the all-clear. She could barely make him out in his recon position inside the ring of darkness outside Bashim's private quarters, well-concealed from the sight of the prison sentries. She did, however, have a clear view of Bashim reclining at his table inside, gorging himself on Moldavian wine and lamb, treating his Iranian grandson-in-law-to-be to a lavish feast.

With his prize possession—his beautiful granddaughter—serving her betrothed.

Darya had already delivered a tray of what looked like lamb kebobs, a new, red hijab wrapped around her head and wearing a flowing green dress that made her appear every inch the princess Akif claimed she was.

She'd done it. Marched right back to camp, knocked on the doors and swept back into her grandfather's arms without flinching. Mae wasn't sure what words had passed between them behind the scenes—Darya hadn't uttered a sound when she'd let Mae in through the back gate.

Nor when she'd seen Vicktor, Wick, Dekker and Artyom.

But she had smiled.

Now Mae sat in the quiet chopper, her heart hammering its way up her throat. Too long. What was taking them so long? All they had to do was get inside the prison, find Chet and Josh and…what if Chet was so hurt he couldn't move? What if—

Nope. She wasn't going there. She wasn't going to let her fears immobilize her.

Movement flickered near the back of the prison. It wasn't one of Chet's men. This guy wore a blue shirt and slung an older-looking Kalashnikov across his chest. He walked right into the spotlight without a care of concealment, right toward the door where Wick—
“Perestan!”

Stop! Oh, no, he'd seen something, and Mae winced as he aimed his weapon into the night. A shot. Barreling out of the chopper, Mae lunged toward the guard as he yelled again. She took him down before he managed another shot, hitting him in the back with both arms crossed, sweeping his feet out from under him. She landed with her knee in his spine, twisting his arm back in a submission hold.

Then she looked up.

Dekker stood there, breathing hard, mouth slightly agape. “Remind me not to get in your way. You're a little scary.”

“Did you find him?”

“Aunt Mae.” Josh appeared, white-faced, looking pretty good for having spent three days on the run, and one night in Akif's tombs.

“Joshy!”

Dekker disarmed Mae's captive, shoving his weapon against his neck. And then she had her arms around
Josh, holding him tight, just like she did when he was little, squeezing him hard. “Are you hurt?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay.” She let go of him and forced herself to get moving. She'd check for injuries later. And that was when the grilling would start.

“Where's Chet?”

The words had barely left her mouth when Vicktor appeared, bearing the weight of another man.

Chet.

Or what was left of him. Mae forced herself not to gasp or cry out. He looked as if he'd been hit by a tank, both eyes nearly swollen shut, stumbling badly as they pulled him over the threshold. “Get moving, Mae,” Vicktor said, probably to keep her from dissolving.

She turned. The chopper.
Get to the chopper.

But what about Darya…

“Where's Darya? We can't leave her,” Josh said, on the track of Mae's thoughts.

Chet's head lifted. He may have tried to meet Mae's eyes, but in the darkness, she wasn't sure. She grabbed Josh's arm. “She's coming.”

Please, Darya, for Chet's sake…for Josh's sake…

They hightailed it to the chopper, Chet staggering, Luke blocking and—

Light exploded around them, floodlights laying them bare. Dekker kept running as a shot from behind them cracked the air.

“Take cover!” Vicktor yelled, and he and Wick returned fire.

Another shot crumpled Dekker right before her eyes. He lay, writhing in the dirt, the chopper some twenty feet away.

She grabbed Josh and beelined behind a bulwark
of barrels. Oh, perfect, she'd picked a barrel of gas to hide behind. Vicktor had chosen slightly more wisely, behind a truck. Out in the open, Dekker curled into a ball, clearly trying to stifle his pain.

“Stop.” The voice, dark and resonant, issued from a large man who walked out followed by a horde of soldiers. He appeared red-eyed and soused, unsteady on his feet, which made him even more dangerous.

Akif Bashim.

“Stop. I only want Pancho. The rest can leave.”

The rest can leave. Mae shot a look at Vicktor, who was having a bit of trouble holding Chet down. Clearly Pancho was ready to acquiesce.
No, please, Vicktor, don't let him.

Chet got a few words out, despite the hand Wick locked over his mouth. “I surrender—”

Wick levered him to the ground, and Chet clearly didn't have the strength to resist.

“We're not leaving without him. Sorry,” Vicktor said, in calm Russian.

“Let them go, Grandfather.”

Everyone froze. Josh went wide-eyed as Darya walked up from behind them. She still wore her beautiful green dress and the decorative hijab. But over it, she wore Josh's jacket, which bore the emblem of the Arizona Wildcats.

“Let them go, Akif.”

“You go back to the house. Your fiancé is waiting.”

“I will. Right after you let them go.” Her eyes panned toward the chopper, as if searching for Josh, or maybe Chet.

“What is she doing?” Next to Mae, Josh had started to fidget, ready to leap up and make a run for her. Mae put her hand on his arm and clamped tight.

“I can't do that, Darya,” Akif said. “You know what he did. He must pay—”

“No, Grandfather. He's paid enough. Let him go, and I will stay.”

“No!”

Mae squeezed Josh's arm, but the outcry could just as easily have issued from Chet, who'd come alive again. Of course.

“Darya—”

And then Darya opened the jacket. Mae went cold, and next to her, Josh stilled. Even Wick stopped restraining Chet for a moment.

Only Dekker's groans broke the silence.

Darya had strapped to her body a vest wired with enough ammo to take out half of Bashim's camp, and maybe even their group, too.

Not to mention, of course, Darya herself.

“She can't be serious,” Josh said, his lips hardly moving, his voice thin.

“She looks serious to me.”

Darya held up a detonator in her hand, her thumb poised over the trigger. And, as if to scatter any remaining doubt, she added, “I've been paying attention, Grandfather, to everything you've every said. Including how to arm a bomb.”

Next to her, Josh let out a cry that wrenched Mae's heart. “I'll do it, Grandfather. I'll do it unless you let Chet, Josh and their friends go.” Then she turned toward the chopper and said, “And, Josh, if you love me, you'll get my father, and Mae, and leave. Now. And don't look back.”

Akif looked as if his head might explode. He stared at her, eyes red, face hot, shaking, and Mae had no doubt that watching his financial bargaining chip threatening
to blow herself into tiny unmarketable bits had turned him stone-cold sober.

That was what happened when you treated someone like a commodity.

But Josh, who most certainly hadn't treated Darya like a commodity, wasn't holding it together any better. Mae now had both arms around him, hissing into his ear. “She's doing this for you, Josh. You gotta let her do it.”

He thrashed in her arms, elbowing her hard, but she held on, despite the catch of her breath.

“Let me go!”

His tone broke her heart, but she dug her feet in. “Do you want to get her killed?”

He shook in her arms, his breath coming fast.

Clearly, no one wanted to see Darya make good on her threat. Mae shot a look at Vicktor, who was doing the quick math.

They could protest—tell Darya they weren't moving—and risk her making good on her threats.

Or they could go, and return for her another day.

Josh pushed Mae's arms away from him, and she let go, grabbing his wrist. “C'mon. You need to trust her.”

Tears cut down Josh's face as he stood. He stared at Darya with a look that broke Mae nearly in half. She stared back at him, her dark blue eyes fierce.

I love you.

He mouthed it, but Mae heard it loud and clear.

Then, lips drawn tight into a grim line, he turned and ran toward the chopper.

“The helicopter!” Akif yelled from behind them, but Mae didn't turn to look. He wouldn't choose the chopper over his granddaughter…

No one was sticking around to find out. Vicktor and Wick wrestled Chet toward the chopper. They loaded him in, and Vicktor held him down while Wick went back for Dekker. It looked as if he'd been shot in the leg. His face was a mask of pain as he stumbled toward the chopper.

Which Mae already had fired up, the blades rotating into a whir, sifting up dust, throwing it on Bashim's army.

And in the center, holding her arms high, stood Darya, tears dripping off her chin, eyes fixed on the chopper. Probably on Josh, but maybe also on Chet, who had stopped struggling and now simply stared at his daughter, an unrecognizable expression on his mangled face.

Mae couldn't watch. Not only because she was trying to lift an Mi-17 off the ground, but because she understood. Truly, finally got it.

Doomed.

Because when you loved someone, really loved them, you had to let them make their own choices. Even if you hated it. Even if it cost you so much of yourself that you wondered if there would be anything left.

You didn't have
doomed,
until you first had
loved.

Chet would live. Josh would live. Because Darya had loved them enough to let them go.

As they lifted away, out of the wash of floodlights and into the night, she looked down and saw Darya smile up at them and wave.

 

“You don't look so good.”

The voice roused him, and for a second, Chet thought he was back in the dank cell with Josh, testing his pain as he forced his eyes open.

Oh. Not in a prison cell, his body pressed into the concrete floor, bleeding out, but in a bed. A soft bed, with Mae smiling down at him, fatigue around her eyes. “You Lunds have terrible bedside manners,” he said through parched lips.

Mae lifted a plastic cup and angled a straw toward him. “You think
we
have bad bedside manners? This morning, you called me David and told me I needed a haircut.”

He took a sip of the water and swallowed it slowly, letting it moisten his throat. “This morning?”

“I forgive you on account of the fact that you were probably high. You've got two broken ribs and a bruised kidney. You're lucky to be alive.” She ran her fingers lightly down his face.

“Where am I?”

“A hospital in Prague. We didn't want to take any chances.”

He vaguely remembered a choppy, cold ride in the back of an army cargo plane. “When did we get here?”

“Early this morning.”

He'd been out of it for a while. Night panned the window, a few bright lights indicating the city beyond the glass.

Then it came back to him, watching his daughter surrounded by terrorists as the darkness clipped her out of his view.

He reached up, despite the IV attached to his arm, and caught Mae's hand. “Darya. Was I dreaming, or did she stay behind, with a suicide vest strapped to her body?”

He kept seeing that image over and over again, punching through the waves of black. Each time he broke free,
slicked in a cold sweat, it snared him again. “Please, tell me that was a nightmare.”

Mae wore a grim expression. “No, I'm afraid that wasn't a nightmare.”

He closed his eyes, wincing as breath raked through his chest. He didn't recognize the sound that emanated from him.

Mae squeezed his hand. “She's going to be okay, Chet.”

Yeah, like Carissa had been okay. Trapped in a life she hadn't deserved. “We have to get her out.”

“Maybe. But I met an interesting guy out in the hallway. Big, blond. He says to tell you that you did a good job.”

As if on cue, the door opened, and Miller walked into the room.

Ole Miss. Chet gave him his best turn-to-ash glare. The agent looked unfazed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. He took one look at Chet's hand clasped over Mae's and handed her the card. “Nice talking to you, Miss Lund. If you ever need anything…”

Mae took the card and gave him a nod.

What?

“As for you, Mr. Stryker, the agency thanks you for your work. And of course would appreciate your silence on the matter.”

“I want to know when we're getting Darya out of there.”

Miller glanced at Mae. “She hasn't filled you in, then.”

Mae tightened her grip on his hand when she said, “Darya is already in Iran. The wedding is in a week. And the CIA has no intention of stopping it.”

Chet could feel the roar coming out of him as he
sat up, even as his ribs screamed at the effort. “What? You're going to let her marry—”

“Yes, we are.”

“Calm down, Chet.” Mae pressed her hand on his chest. “First, you need to remember that marrying Akeem was Darya's idea. They're friends from London. She's even fond of him. But most of all, she wants to do this.”

“She's just a kid!”

“She's older than most kids her age.” Mae glanced at Miller, then back at Chet. “I think you should listen to what he has to say.” The look in her eyes suggested there was more to the story.

“We've got a man inside her house. An Iranian who will keep his eye on her. And I promise, if we get so much as a whiff that she's in trouble, we'll yank her out of there.”

Chet lay back, his gaze scanning from Mae to Miller and back.