"Remote," Izzy agreed. "But I'd do her if she asked. I mean, who'd say no to that? Now Lindsey Fontaine. Totally bangable, right?"

Jenk sighed.

"Yeah, yeah," Izzy said. "You pretend she's just your friend, but I've seen you looking at her like you got a rocket in your pocket. On the Mark Jenkins Wham-Bang scoreboard, with a high-scoring ten being who? Julie Andrews?"

"Fuck you." Jenk laughed. They had to get moving.

But Izzy had more to say. "There's a solid affirmative. And dude, really, no need to be ashamed. Mary Poppins is hot. So Julie's a ten, which means Lindsey's, what? Off the charts with a never-before-seen fifteen? Ow."

"We should probably shut up now," Jenk said. They wanted to find Decker, not have Decker find them.

"And, again, I'll take that as a yes." Izzy was satisfied.

Which was fine with Jenk. Let him have the last word. Let him think he was right. Even though he wasn't.

On Jenk's nonexistent scoreboard, if he'd had such a thing, Lindsey Fontaine would have come in much higher than fifteen.

CHAPTER.

SIX.

Sophia couldn't believe that she had, in one magnificent screwup, lost their hostage and killed her boss.

Although maybe it was worth it-just for that one moment when Decker was crouching there next to her, concern in his eyes. Are you sure you're all right?

Her knee was badly bruised, and it stung where she'd scraped it. And the heels of her hands were pretty raw, too. She'd managed to conceal that from both Decker and Dave. Well, Decker, anyway. It was clear that Dave knew her hands were sore as he took her by the wrist and swiftly pulled her with him into a cave that was barely more than a crevice among the rocks.

"What-"

He shook his head, pressing a finger to his lips, then touching his ear. He'd heard something. Someone was following them.

How many? She mouthed the words.

Dave shook his head. He didn't know. He touched his ear again. He was listening.

There were only a few men on the planet with whom Sophia felt safe enough to occupy the same few square inches of space without discomfort, and Dave Malkoff was one of them.

He'd put on quite a bit of weight since the last time they'd been squeezed in together in a tight spot. It was funny that she hadn't noticed, although come to think of it, he had mentioned recently that he'd joined a gym. And he did tend to wear loose T-shirts and baggy shorts.

His arms around her felt warming rather than threatening. She could hear him trying to slow his breathing, feel his heart. It was pounding. They were, no doubt, in even worse trouble than she'd thought.

It was entirely possible that they were surrounded by the SEALs who took Lindsey. Although why, if they wanted to kill them, had they waited until now to do it? It didn't make sense.

Dave loosened his hold on her as he quietly attempted to work the radio.

Sophia tapped his arm.

Why are they following us? she silently asked when he blinked down at her, their faces mere inches apart.

He leaned close enough to speak to her.

"I think they realized we don't have radio contact with the other cells," he said almost noiselessly, his breath warm against her ear.

Okay, now, this was awkward. Or it would have been if it were anyone but her good buddy Dave. She was pressed against him from shoulders to thighs, her left hand pinned between his chest and her breasts. Straightening her arm would mean her hand would dangle near a place she didn't want her hand dangling.

"They know that as soon as we spread the word that Lindsey's gone," he explained, "our team's priority is going to be to get her back. They probably realize that neutralizing us puts them at a serious advantage."

Sophia's wrist was on the verge of breaking, so she shifted her shoulder, moving her arm back around him. Which resulted in her upper body plastered against his, and his mouth not just close to her ear, but pressed against it as he continued, "I'm pretty sure they're-Sorry. I'm..."

He pulled back, which was even more awkward because now he was looking directly into her eyes. His lips moved silently. Sorry.

For several long seconds something hung in the air between them. Something palpable and aware and warmly sexual-and she wanted to cry, because this was Dave, for heaven's sake.

He was her friend.

Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was just another man who wanted to possess her. Maybe he was trying to worm his way into her bed indirectly. Maybe he was even worse than the others who were, at least, up front about what they really wanted.

And now Sophia had the choice of putting her left hand along his shoulder or his waist. Both were equally suggestive and she wanted to do neither.

"Shit," he said. "Shit. How could you be afraid of me?"

How did he know? Was she really that transparent? Apparently, yes.

"Look," he said, taking her face between his hands, obviously no longer trying to be silent, no longer caring who overheard them. "You're a very attractive woman. I find you attractive-I'd have to be dead for, like, two years not to, and...I guess it's sometimes hard for me to hide it. But please, please don't think that I would ever act in any way that would jeopardize our friendship. Think about it, Sophia. I'm one of the few people who can actually guess the kind of abuse you survived in Kazbekistan. I would never take advantage of you. Never. I would rather die first."

The look in his eyes was so completely Dave-sincere and honest and desperately true, and Sophia suddenly had the perfect place for her left arm. She wrapped it around him, as she held him tightly. "I'm sorry. I'm so stupid." Stupid and twisted and broken. Would she ever completely trust anyone ever again?

"No, this was my fault," Dave told her, kissing the top of her head. "This is just a...a silly game, and I let the idea of winning it matter more than..." He shifted, as if to pull her out of the narrow cover that the rocks provided. "Let's surrender. We can just walk out there, hands up. End this right now."

She pulled back to look up at him, shocked that he would even suggest such a thing. And grateful to him, too, at the same time.

"I bet they'll give us chocolate," he said enticingly.

"You'd betray the cause for chocolate?" she asked, straightening her bandana and giving him her haughtiest glare. "Senorita Diablo spits on your shoe." She pretended to do just that, and he laughed.

But his smile quickly faded. "You know, the fact that you're out here at all is...I'm so proud of you."

Dave was standing slightly bent over, shoulders hunched, so as to give her as much room as possible. How could she have ever thought he was a threat of any kind? He was proud of her. She wanted to cry.

"So okay," he said. "We've lost Lindsey and killed Tom. You don't want chocolate, so what's next on the agenda?"

But now she had to laugh. "That was a very generous use of we."

Dave shrugged. "I'm team leader. You might do it, but I own it. With that in mind, what are we doing next?"

"We need to get that message to Alyssa," Sophia told him. "Try the radio again."

He did, holding the headphones to one ear. "Still nothing."

"Okay," Sophia said. "Here's what I think we should do."

Jenkins rematerialized next to Izzy, sending a silent message with a shake of his head.

No one was following them.

This was surreal.

Izzy and Jenk were following Decker, who had gone in circles for quite some time, searching for something that he didn't appear to find.

Deck had backtracked then, heading in the direction that Lopez and Gilligan had traveled as they'd followed Sophia and Dave Malkoff.

It wasn't long before Decker-a former SEAL-had picked up Lopez and Gillman's trail. He was now following them as they followed Sophia and Dave-and as Iz and Jenk followed him.

The Jenkster had clearly been thinking the same thing Izzy was, because he'd used hand signals to communicate that he was going to circle around behind them, make sure they weren't being followed.

He'd ninja-ed into human mist and drifted away.

For all of Izzy's disparaging comments, Jenkins was one of the better operators on Team Sixteen. Sure, he was no Irving Zanella, but he was tolerably close.

Jenk, now back, hand-signaled a well-deserved What the fuck?

There was no way Izzy was going to be able to explain nonverbally why they'd all stopped moving, so he leaned over and spoke into Jenk's ear.

"Sophia and Malkoff got spooked and ducked into a cave." He quickly sketched out the location of the various other players in this game of Follow the Terrorist Leader. Jenk used his night-vision glasses to locate first Decker and then Lopez and Gillman, and finally the entrance to the cave.

No one had moved, for going on ten minutes now.

"What are they doing in there?" Jenk muttered, his glasses trained on that cave.

"Maybe that's where they've got Lindsey," Izzy suggested. "Or maybe they're having a quickie."

As if on cue, Sophia spoke, her voice ringing in the stillness. "Dave?"

Everyone froze. Izzy used his own NVGs to scan the areas where Decker and the SEALs were hiding. They'd all been nearly invisible before, but now they had completely become one with the rocks and desert scrub around them.

Sophia's voice got louder. "Dave? Oh, my God, Dave! Help me, somebody, oh my God!"

It was the oldest trick in the book. Call for help, draw the enemy out into the open, and turn them into hamburger.

But Sophia didn't stay concealed in the rocks. She ran out into the open herself. "Please, I know someone's out there. We need a radio. We need a medic-please, Dave's...I think he's having a heart attack."

Izzy looked at Jenk, who looked at Izzy.

"She's shitting us, right?" Izzy asked.

"This is real!" Sophia sobbed. Her weapon dropped with a clatter on the ground and she held her hands up. "I'm unarmed, and I need help! Shoot me if you have to, but damn it, help us!"

Jenk shook his head, serious doubt in his eyes. Damn, if they were wondering if maybe Dave really was having a medical emergency, then Dumb and Dumber up there closer to the action were probably...

Izzy trained his NVGs on Gillman and Lopez. Fucking A, they were coming out of cover. Lopez, usually the smarter one, was leading the way. But Lopez was a hospital corpsman. He was physically unable not to risk his own life when the call went out for a medic. That, plus the promise of gratitude brimming in Sophia's tear-filled eyes had significantly lowered his IQ.

As for Gilligan following him-he had no excuse.

"Yup, she's shitting us," Jenkins announced.

Izzy swung the NVGs over to the cave where, sure enough, Dave Malkoff was very much not in the throes of death. From the other SEALs' and even Decker's position he would be completely hidden, but Izzy and Jenk had a clear, unobstructed view of Dave tippy-toeing through the tulips, making a run for freedom.

Sophia, meanwhile, had collapsed, sobbing, onto her dusty stage.

And here was Lopez, trusting that just because her weapon was five feet away from her, she wasn't going to up and shoot him.

Izzy looked up from his green-tinted view of the world as Jenk rapidly moved forward. What the fuck...?

But then he saw that Decker was moving, too. Moving just to the edge of the clearing, still hidden by the scrub brush, his weapon ready to blow Lopez and Gillman away. Jenk was trying to get close enough to eliminate Decker, but he never had a chance.

Because as Lopez and Gillman, the freaking idiots, approached Sophia, she pulled another weapon-Dave's presumably-smaller and concealable, from beneath her jacket.

And she whaled on the trigger, sweeping the barrel, emptying the magazine.

Jenkie pancaked, good man.

Decker wasn't as fortunate. He was as dead as Lopez and Gillman. Izzy could see the stripes on his sleeves reading bright green in his NVGs-which translated to black as seen by the naked eye. The dude rolled onto his back in exasperation. Sophia had killed him, and the big irony was that she didn't even know it.

"Oh, man," Gilligan said as he sat down next to Lopez. Their role in the game was over, and they both knew that the debrief was going to suck. They were going to have some 'splainin' to do. Lopez would play the medic card and as a result would receive at least a sliver of a pardon. But Gilligan was going to be hammered. Because what could the fishboy use as an excuse for following Lopez? I'm sorry, sir, but I was afraid if Lopez went out there by himself and saved the day, he'd end up getting a gratitude screw, and I just wanted to make sure I was eligible for the honors, too.

"Sorry, boys," Sophia said, as she shouldered both weapons.

"Come on, we better move." Good ol' Dave had hung back, waiting for her, instead of running like hell when he'd had the chance.

Sophia scolded him. "You should be long gone."

"Yeah, well, you should be dead." He held out his hand, first to reclaim his weapon and then to help her over the rocky terrain. "Good job, by the way."

"Thank you. I can't say the same to you-what if they'd killed me? They would have caught you right away."

"But they didn't," Dave said evenly. "Shhh. We need to be quiet now."