It was raining, but not that hard-a light misting that made the empty street seem almost to shine.

"Are you okay?" asked Robin, moving closer to Sam, whose answer was a curt nod and a hard look. Shhh.

They had to be silent, and to move as swiftly as possible.

Ash was going for baby-of-the-year award, having fallen back to sleep in the frontpack Robin wore beneath his monk-costume-sheet. Sam, superhuman that he was, was not only carrying Emma beneath his disguise, but was now also helping Gina carry Mikey, with an arm of support around her waist.

The good news was that Gina and Emma were no longer throwing up.

The bad news was that Sam and Robin were going to leave an unmistakable trail behind them.

But Sam was already on top of that, and whenever Robin couldn't take another step farther, Sam seemed to know it, and he steered Robin toward the gutter, which was already disgusting. And when Robin was done, Sam covered up what he'd left behind, which had to be h.e.l.l for Sam.

But onward they moved, every turn taking them further into the center of the city, and farther from the hotel.

And then, seemingly arbitrarily, Sam stopped them, tucking them more deeply into the shadows by ducking down behind a pile of trash-an old, sodden mattress and broken furniture. Finger to his lips, he set Emma down, wrapping her in the sheet that he took from his shoulders.

Then he turned, giving his attention to a small door that Robin hadn't even realized was there among the battered bricks of the building's foundation. It was hobbit-sized, made of blistering and warped wood, with a big rusting metal lock sealing it shut.

Sam took out a knife, the blade flashing as it caught a stray bit of light, and Robin realized that he must've taken it from that guard in the alley.

He used it now, not to pick the lock as Robin had first a.s.sumed, but instead to pry off a set of hinges that connected the door to the brick wall. The nails popped easily out of the damaged wood, and Sam lifted the entire door from the wall.

And that was why they'd stopped here, at this particular building. It had a seemingly secure door leading into its bas.e.m.e.nt-a door with hinges on the outside.

Sam held up a hand, signaling for them to wait while he went through that door first.

Time seemed to hang as Robin worked his way through a long list of what-if scenarios. What if Sam didn't come back? What if he came back shouting Run! Run! What if, while he was gone, someone discovered them, crouching there? What if Ash or Mikey or Emma started to cry? What if Gina pa.s.sed out-she was looking pretty pale. What if Robin pa.s.sed out-but he couldn't pa.s.s out. He wouldn't. He had to be ready in case Sam came bursting out of that bas.e.m.e.nt, telling them to run.

But then, thank G.o.d, Sam appeared in the doorway. He reached his arms out, gesturing for Robin to give him Emma. Gina and Mikey went in next, then Robin pa.s.sed Ash in to Sam, so that he could muscle the door back into place behind them.

It was dark in there, but Sam used his cell phone as a flashlight, the light from its screen bright enough so Robin could see the rough-hewn walls and the dirt floor, the ancient pipes overhead.

Like most bas.e.m.e.nts around the world, it was cluttered with cast-off and long-forgotten junk. A half a bicycle, a semi-truck tire, a broken cricket bat, a pile of ancient and dust-covered empty bottles, a set of broken and rusty gardening tools, and a whole lot of less easily identifiable trash.

There wasn't much there they could make use of, at least not that Robin could see.

Sam, however, seemed fascinated by what looked like an ancient circuit breaker box in the corner across from a long-cold coal burner-no doubt about it, this place now featured only cold-water flats.

Robin's stomach churned and burbled, and he dug for his own phone to use it to light his way to the far corner of the room, stopping to grab a rusting shovel. But right before he turned away, he realized what it was that Sam was looking at.

Those were telephone wires coming into the building-wires that led up through the walls to the various apartments above them.

And as Robin quickly dug a shallow hole in which to place his continuing misery, so to speak, he realized that rescue-via a quick phone call to Troubleshooters Incorporated-was close at hand.

Sure, they were going to have to break into one of the apartments and either use the phone or steal a phone. But that seemed simple enough compared to what they'd already done and where they'd been and- "Holy fah ... leh-lah, leh-lah," Sam said.

"What's wrong?" Gina asked.

"No," Sam said. "Nothing's wrong. It's good, in fact, it's great." He laughed. "Someone in the building has a nonsecure wireless network. I don't have phone service, that's still down, but I can use my phone to access the Internet through this open wireless system, and send an e-mail."

"I'll dictate," Robin said, using the shovel to cover up his deposit before he used his cell phone to light his way back to the others. "Dear Dave and/or Decker, Please come and get us ASAP. Love, Sam. P.S. Don't kiss us on the mouth when you greet us because we are fah ... leh-lah contagious."

"I'm paraphrasing," Sam said dryly. "With luck, they're already looking for us and ... Yeah, Dave was definitely standing by and thank you sweet baby Jesus. The SEALs have retaken the airport. And the emba.s.sy. We're safe, but Dave recommends we stay put, out of sight, until they can send someone out here to pick us up."

"Is there any way we can get a message to Max?" Gina asked, her arms tightly around Mikey and Emma. "He and Alyssa and Jules must be going crazy, worrying about us."

"I'm on it," Sam said, his thumbs flying across his phone's keyboard. He'd put Ash into his frontpack, but after he sent the e-mail, he gave the baby a hug. "You are such a good boy," he told his son.

Who mewed once and then vomited down Sam's shirt and jeans.

"Robin," Sam said quietly.

"I'm right here," Robin said. "I'll take him."

"Thank you."

He took the baby, and Sam took the shovel. And ran.

"Shh, it's okay," Robin said, as Ash started to cry. "You're okay, Big Guy. It's four a.m. You're right on schedule. Mikey's next."

"I'm pretty sure Mike had it first," Gina told him. "I thought it was just normal baby spitup, but in hindsight ..."

"Really?" Robin said, using a piece of one of the sheets to clean off Ash. "Yay."

Chapter Ten.

Greek Isles Jules found Robin sleeping on the beach, beneath an umbrella. "Hey. babe."

Robin sat up so fast he almost fell out of his lounge chair. "Oh, my G.o.d! You're here!"

"Yeah, we caught an earlier flight." Jules laughed as Robin enveloped him in a hug and kissed the bejesus out of him.

G.o.d, yes, this was exactly what he'd needed ...

But then Robin pulled back to look at him. "Two weeks earlier?" he asked.

"The a.s.signment took less time than we'd originally thought."

Robin ran his hand self-consciously across the dark stubble that covered his head. "I thought I'd have more time to, you know, grow this out."

"It's actually adorable. And amazing," Jules said, "and it makes it kind of impossible to ignore what happened to you, and Gina, and Sam and the kids-G.o.d, when we heard, we were sick, we were so worried."

"No, actually, we were sick," Robin quipped.

But Jules wasn't ready to laugh. "What a nightmare and Jesus, all I could think was this kind of worrying is what I put you through, this is what I willingly do to you, every time I go out there and put myself in danger."

"No, babe," Robin said, pulling him close and enveloping him in his arms. "No, that's just not true. I mean, yeah, it can be scary, but I know-I know, in fact, I've just had the ultimate reminder that you can take care of yourself. I mean, I knew that, I did, but now I really know that you're super-safe, as safe as you can possibly be, especially when someone like Sam or Alyssa or Max is by your side. Watching Sam deal with everything and anything that got thrown at us ...? He knew exactly what to do, where to go, how to handle it."

"He told Alyssa he couldn't have done it without your help," Jules said, gazing searchingly into Robin's brilliant blue eyes.

Robin smiled and shook his head. "That's just more of Sam being Sam," he said as he held out his hand so that he and Jules could intertwine their fingers as they walked back to the resort. "If he'd had to, he would've figured out a way to carry both me and Gina and all three kids."

Jules laughed, because he knew it was true. "The whole stomach flu thing must've killed him. Sympathy vomiter and all."

"He was hurting," Robin agreed. "And yet he won a knife fight. Won in a major way, like, after it was over, he was in possession of the knife and he wasn't the unconscious one."

"That's our Sam," Jules said. "How many st.i.tches?"

"Ten," Robin reported. "Although I had no clue he was hurt, let alone that he needed st.i.tches, until we were in Germany." He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Jules. "Did you need any st.i.tches in the past week and a half?"

Jules shook his head. "Nope. But I caught Mikey's flu."

Robin laughed. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yeah. Max did, too. We pa.s.sed it along to pretty much all of the FOB. And the CO of SEAL Team Sixteen," Jules reported. "He was really happy about that. Alyssa's got it now. She was feeling funky on the plane, and soon as we took off ..." He made a face as he shook his head.

"Ah, G.o.d," Robin said. "So she's just at the beginning of it. Poor Sam."

"He's Sam," Jules said. "He'll deal." He smiled at Robin. "But we're here, and we'll definitely help."

FAQs Answered: Interview with Suz

The following is compiled from a series of online interviews. My thanks to all who posed such interesting questions.

Q: You began your career as a romance writer, but now your books are labeled romantic suspense or romantic military action/adventures. Does this influence what you write?

SUZ: No, it doesn't. But I have to admit that I've used labels like those-and even the broader label of "romance novel"-to "get away" with writing exactly what I want to write.

I think labels are something that publishers, booksellers, and even readers use to help them organize the purchase and sales and selection of books. What's this book about? Well, it's about this man who comes to believe that terrorists targeted his ex-wife and daughter. Oh, so it's a thriller. Well, yeah, sort of. Except there's more. Our hero comes face-to-face with a woman he's had a couple of brief but intense affairs with in the past, and as they spend time together, they're finally able to begin to build a real relationship. Oh, so it's a romance. Well, yeah, sort of, except there's more. An awful lot of time is spent on the hero's childhood and ...

And so on.

You know, the first book in my Troubleshooters series, The Unsung Hero, is really a novel about Charles Ashton, an eightysomething World War II veteran with terminal cancer. This character's story, both his adventures as a downed pilot in n.a.z.i-occupied France and his contemporary struggles with his own impending demise, is the soul of this book.

And yet there's enough going on in the book so that it is a romance. And a military action/adventure.

And there's a sweet secondary romance between two teenagers. And ... it's a lot of things, all in one book.

I could give you a log line for The Unsung Hero: "A Navy SEAL commander recovering from a near-fatal head injury spots a terrorist in his sleepy New England hometown."

Where's the romance? Where's eighty-year-old Charles? Well, they're in there-they're the heart and soul of this book that's most easily labeled a romantic suspense!

Q: What comes to you first, character or story?

SUZ: For me, it's almost always character that comes first. I spend a lot of time writing books with recurring characters-people whose personalities have been solidly established in previous books. I often move former secondary characters into main character roles and devise their story by asking the question, "What type of conflict or situation would push these particular characters beyond their personal edge? How can I make them really suffer?" Because really, the best stories deal with characters who must face their personal vulnerabilities.

Here's an example of what I mean. Say you had a hero who was a mountain climber. You could create a plot that involved him scaling a cliff to save a stranded child. You could throw in an impending thunderstorm-no, make it a hailstorm with high winds. He's got to get up there and rescue that child-no, make her a toddler, trapped with her father who had a heart attack right there on the trail. That could be sort of exciting, right?

Well, no. Because the hero's a mountain climber. It's no big deal for him to scale that cliff. He'll probably yawn while he's doing it.

And the reader will yawn, too.

But what if the hero isn't a mountain climber? What if he's the opposite of a mountain climber-what if he's terrified of heights? I'm talking Jimmy Stewartalevel vertigo a la the Hitchc.o.c.k movie of that very name.

Toss this hero into that scenario I sketched out above, and no one's yawning now! When this hero rescues that child, he's not just climbing a cliff, he's facing his demons.

So what I do when I plot my books is figure out who my hero is going to be, what his vulnerabilities are, and what type of situation I can throw him into, to make him really suffer! The same rule applies, of course, to my heroines.

Q: Sam and Alyssa are probably your most popular couple. Where did the idea come from, to stretch their story out over five books?

SUZ: When I outlined Sam and Alyssa's story arc, my intention was to present a traditional romance backstory in "real time."

It's fairly typical to find a book in which the hero and heroine have had a romantic and/or s.e.xual encounter in the past, and have, after that encounter, gone in two different directions. But in the actual book, these two characters come face-to-face again, and are forced to work together and deal with their history, as well as any feelings that are still in play.

With Sam and Alyssa, I wanted to bring my readers along for a ride, having what would typically be that backstory play out over the course of six or seven books, as subplots.

For example, in The Unsung Hero, I introduced the two and even though they are minor secondary characters, it's clear that they are throwing sparks and clashing.

In the next book, The Defiant Hero, there is a major romantic subplot in which these two characters again clash in a hate/love relationship that explodes, with the help of overindulgence in alcohol, in a one-night stand. Neither character is mature enough to deal with a real relationship, and the morning after is filled with regrets and additional mistakes. At the end of the book, they decide to pretend that night never happened, and go about their separate lives.

The third book, Over the Edge, takes place six months later, and the two characters again meet and are forced to work together. Again they clash and spark, and there's another one-night stand. But this time, both are a little bit older and wiser, and they realize there could be something more between them. But the book ends with an external conflict-a girlfriend Sam dated during those six months he and Alyssa spent apart is pregnant and he feels he must "do the right thing" and marry her-that sends the pair in separate directions.

The fourth book, Out of Control, has more of a minor subplot from Alyssa's point of view, in which she is attempting to get on with her life. Sam, meanwhile, is trying to make his loveless marriage work for the sake of his new baby.

The fifth book, Into the Night, shows Sam trying to make the best of his marriage to a woman he doesn't love, and who truly doesn't love him. In this book, Sam comes to the realization that marriage without love is not "the right thing."

And the sixth book, Gone Too Far, is Sam and Alyssa's story. Again, they're thrown together. Sam is single again. Both are even older and wiser, and prove through their journey in the book that they have earned the right to a happy ending-which they achieve at the end of the story.

I outlined Sam and Alyssa's story arc way back after I wrote The Unsung Hero. I suspected that telling Sam and Alyssa's story in this manner, in an arc that spread across so many books, would be compelling.

Keep in mind that, up to Gone Too Far, Sam and Alyssa's story was told as a subplot in addition to the main plot/main romance of each book. At the time, this was something different from a traditional romance-writing a romantic subplot that ended unhappily or without absolute closure at the book's end. Readers were drawn to this, as I'd hoped!

Q: Were you surprised at the response to Sam and Alyssa's story arc?