She could taste his surprise for all of a half a second. But then, aOh, yeah,a he breathed, and he kissed her back, just as hungrily.

It happened so fast. How could it have happened so fast? One minute they were fighting, and the next she was wrapping her legs around him.

How could she be doing this? She didnat even like him.

But, God, she wanted him.

She was still nauseous, still had a headache from hell. By all rights she should have been too sick to want anything but the solitude of a dark room and twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Instead she wanted Roger Starrett.

She could feel him, thick and heavy against her. Her shoulders were pressed back against the cool tile of the wall as he kissed her, touched her, his hands everywhere at once. But his hands werenat enough. One shift of her body, and, oh yes, he was inside of her.

aJesus, Alyssa!a she heard him say, but she drowned him out with her own cry of pleasure, clinging to him desperately, locking her legs around him, moving wildly against him as she lost what little remained of both her control and dignity.

All shead really needed was to feel him hard inside of her. It was enough to push her over the edge and she exploded.

aOh, God,a Starrett gasped, as if from a thousand miles away. aI canata"a He was trying to pull away. But she was still being tossed by wave upon wave of excruciating pleasure, and she clung to him. She wouldnat let him go.

He spoke again, his voice a rough rasp through gritted teeth, as if he were lifting a thousand pounds and was more than ready to let it drop. aYou gotta let me pull out, Lys, Iam not wearing aa"a Condom.

Locke opened her eyes, all of her pleasure instantly replaced by shocked disbelief. Icy cold, it ran through her veins and she frozea"with her legs still tightly around him.

She saw his release. She saw in his eyes the exact moment that he couldnat fight it any longer, as he surrendered to his bodyas needs and sent his seed deep inside of her.

What had she just done?

She let go of him, pushing him away from her, but it was too late.

Much too late.

aOh, God, oh, Jesus, Iam sorry,a Starrett was saying.

What had she done?

Last night shead had the excuse of too much to drink. This morning she had no excuse at all. And this morning she hadnat even thoughta"not even oncea"about protection. What was wrong with her?

Her knees werenat working. She wobbled and Starrett tried to support her, but she pushed him away, holding on to the wall instead. aDonat touch me.a aAlyssa, I swear, I never intended . . .a He was still breathing hard, still shaking. He held on to the wall himself. aIt happened so fast. And then you wouldnat let me go and I couldnat pull outa"a aYouare a Navy SEAL!a She tried to wash herself clean, but she knew damn well that wouldnat help at all. She was dizzy and sick to her stomach and her headache was back in full force. aYouare an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Youave got close to seventy pounds on me, and youare telling me you couldnat pull out?a aNot without hurting you. I didnat want to hurt you. I didnat want . . .a He shook his head miserably. aI thought I could hold on. I thought . . . Christ, Iam sorry.a He may well have just gotten her pregnant, and he was sorry? God, she was going to be sick again.

aOh, Jesus.a Starrett sat down on the edge of the tub as if he were as dizzy as she was. aAlyssa, look, if youare pregnant, Iall . . .a He took a deep breath. aIall marry you.a He was serious. He was actually serious. As if being chained to him for life would somehow make it all okay.

Yes, she was definitely going to throw up again.

Locke lunged for the toilet, pulling Starrett with her out of the tub. Her stomach should have been empty, but it wasnat. And she managed to be violently ill all over again.

It was worse than before, because this time she couldnat block Starrett out.

aWay to go, Roger,a he muttered to himself as he wiped her face with a cool cloth, as he took the sopping T-shirt that was hanging off her arm and wrung it out. aSex with you makes her hurl. Or maybe itas the thought of marriage. Either way, isnat this just perfect?a He raised his voice just a little. aAlyssa, I am so fucking sorry.a Locke started to laugh. She couldnat help it. Her misery was so intense, so consuming, and yet his apology was completely heartfelt and so totally Roger Starrett.

But her laughter turned almost instantly to first one sob, and then another, and then, horribly, mortifyingly, she was crying.

aOh, God, Iave ruined my life,a she sobbed pathetically, giving in to total self-pity. aIave completely destroyed my career.a Starrett knelt beside her, wrapping a towel around her. aWhat are you talking about? Youare not really afraid getting pregnant willa"a aIam not pregnant!a She looked up at him fiercely. aIam supposed to get my period any day now. Any minute. Iam not pregnant. I canat be. I wonat be.a He sat back, rocked onto his heels by her ferocity.

aBut I donat need to get pregnant to completely screw things up for myself.a She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, forcing herself to stop. Crying wasnat going to helpa"in fact it was only making this worse. aI didnat even need to do thisa"a She lifted her wrist that was handcuffed and raised his arm, too. aa"to ruin my life.a He didnat get it.

aI only had to spend the night with you, Roger,a she told him. aThatas all I had to do. The really stupid part was that it should have been easy to keep from messing my life up. Staying away from you should have been a cinch. We donat even like each other.a He still didnat understand. aYouare saying that spending the night with me has ruined your career? Get real, Lockea"thatas just plain stupid.a aYou want to hear stupid? Stupid is being the best sharpshooter in the entire U.S. military and being assigned to work a desk. Stupid is dealing with goddamned innuendos and thinly veiled sexual comments day in and day out, and getting so that youare used to it, so that you expect it. Stupid is being recruited for an FBI counterterrorist team because youare the best person for the job and still having to face comments about quotas and equal opportunity. Stupid is doing a kickass job and having my supervisor congratulate me while he sneaks a look down my shirt. You have no idea what I go up against every single day that I go into work,a she told him. aI cannot, cannot allow my coworkers to see me as a sex object. I cannot have them talking about my sex life. I canat even have a sex life!a aYou donat,a Starrett pointed out. aYou told me last night this is the first relationship youave been in in four years.a aNo.a She shook her head, wiped her eyes. aThis is not a relationship. This is an accident. A terrible, terrible accident.a He sat even farther back from her and laughed. aOh, yeah, thatas right. Silly me. It was an accident. Of course. Four different times, you accidentally put my dick in youra"a aYouare such a jerk,a Locke interrupted him hotly. aI donat know what Iam so worried about. No oneas going to believe youa"go on, you can brag about this all you want.a He stared at her, open mouthed with seeming disbelief. aYou think Iad brag about . . . ?a aCut the insulted act,a Locke said, making sure the towel was secure around her as she leaned wearily back against the bathroom wall. aI know you. You like to talk. Youall tell someone. WildCard. Or Jenk.a She closed her eyes. She could put in for reassignment. Maybe Chicago. Or San Francisco. No, San Francisco was too near the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado. Maybe Denver . . . aDefinitely John Nilsson. I know youare going to tell Nils.a And then, forty-five minutes after they got these handcuffs off, the entire Troubleshooters squad would know that Roger Starrett had finally scored with Alyssa Locke. Or at least they would have heard the story. Whether they believed it was a different matter entirely.

aIam not going to tell anyone, Alyssa,a Starrett said quietly. aBecause youare right. No one would believe me. To be honest, I hardly believe it happened myself.a It was midmorning by the time Meg pulled into the Seagull Motel. Shead stopped several times at fast-food drive throughs to get coffee for herself and some water for Razeen. Shead managed to give him the last of the sleeping pills, and he was snoring again, and hopefully would be until she could get him inside the motel room.

The Extremist from the parking garage had told her the motel room would be reserved for her under the name Joan Smith. She had been told to check in and wait to be contacted.

Meg parked right outside the office. Leaving the window open only a crack, she locked Razeen in the car and went inside.

The clerk was a tremendously bored, tremendously pregnant girl of maybe sixteen. She gathered the paperwork for the room with infinitesimal slowness. It was all Meg could do not to leap over the counter and do it herself.

As long as she kept moving, she had the strength to keep going. In the car, shead kept the radio on, distracting herself with music. But standing here, waiting, there was nothing to do but think.

Think about Eve and Amy, whoa"as John believeda"might already be dead. Her precious baby might not have been taken from Meg just for these awful few days, but forever. It was too terrible to think about. Too devastating to consider.

Eve would die protecting Amy, Meg knew that. But even Eve, despite her sometimes seemingly mythic strength and determination, couldnat protect Amy from terrorists who had a reputation, as John had reminded her, for putting bullets into the heads of their hostages.

Meg knew that John had firsthand experience dealing with terrorists. What he believed was based on a grim reality that Meg herself had come into contact with only very briefly during her stay in Kazbekistan.

But now she didnat want to think about Amy, and she didnat want to think about John, either.

Leaving him behind had been the right thing to do. She was probably going to die. She knew that, accepted it. She almost didnat even care anymore. But she did care about John.

She cared too much.

aJoan Smith, huh?a the girl said. aWeave been getting about ten phone calls a day, asking if youave checked in yet.a Meg couldnat breathe. aReally?a aIs that your car?a aThe white one, yes,a she replied.

aHow many people are you going to have in this room? Because we have these rules and . . .a There was a flicker of somethinga"life maybea"in the girlas eyes and voice that made Meg turn around and look out the window into the parking lot.

Five men in long, dark raincoats surrounded her car. A cargo van, its front door open, stood nearby.

aOh, my God!a Maybe this was what the Extremist had meant when head said shead be contacted. Maybe these men had Amy and Eve in that van.

aWhat about the room?a the girl asked plaintively. aAnd thereas aa"a Meg didnat bother to answer, didnat hear the rest of it as she rushed for the door.

The morning sunshine seemed to dance across the surface of her car and make five pairs of mirrored sunglasses shine. One of the men wore a necklace that glistened in the bright light.

It was surreal.

The raincoats seemed oddly out of place under the perfect blue sky, but they hid great, huge guns. The kind of guns John Nilsson and his men had carried when theyad arrived at the Kazbekistani embassy. Assault weapons, John called them. The kind of guns that could cut a person in half with a spray of deadly bullets.

The men kept their guns under their coats as she approached, but they made certain she knew they were there. As if she could possibly miss them.

aDo you have my daughter?a she demanded. aI want to see my daughter, and I want to see her now.a Two of the men exchanged a glance, and Meg realized with a sharp surge of dread that the flash of sunlight shead seen was glinting off stylized Kazbekistani symbols that hung from a thick gold chain around the one manas neck.

Those symbols were the Kazbekistani letters for G, I, and K.

These were not the Extremists. These were Razeenas own men, come to set him free.

Before Meg could move, before she could reach into her pocket for her gun anda"God help her!a"shoot Razeen right through the car window, two of the men had taken her swiftly by the arms and a third patted her pockets and took her weapon.

Oh, God! Shead come all this way, only to lose now. She could barely stand, barely breathe, barely think.

aYouall see your daughter soon enough.a The necklaced man spoke in a heavy accent. aUnlock the car.a Think. Think, she ordered herself. If she burst into tears, theyad know she knew they werenat the Extremists. If she just unlocked the car door, theyad take Razeen and be gone, leaving her, probably with a bullet in her head.

Meg could see the motel clerk watching them with unabashed interest through the big plate glass windows.

One of the raincoats glanced warily toward the clerk, too. And Meg knew they didnat want to create a scene and bring the police into this. They didnat want to break the windows of her car, they didnat want to shoot her, they didnat want screaming or the sound of breaking glass or gunshots.

aWe will take him,a the necklaced man told her, aand you will stay here for thirty minutes, doing nothing, talking to no one. After thirty minutes, you will get into your car and drive to the McDonaldas, four blocks west. Your daughter will be there, in the ladiesa room.a Hope and doubt flooded her simultaneously. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe these were the Extremists, and getting Amy back would be as simple as unlocking her car door and waiting thirty minutes before driving four blocks west.

Think. Think. aWhat about my grandmother?a Meg asked. aAnd my . . . my grandfather?a aOf course,a the man said. aTheyall be there, too. Youall have them all back, all safely.a Her hope sputtered and died. All her hope.

No, she refused to accept that the situation was completely hopeless. There had to be another way, another option, another choice.

Escape seemed impossible.

Her only option was to somehow grab one of the big assault guns and blast Razeen into hell. Then she had two choices: to kill Razeen or die herself, trying to kill him.

But wait. She had another gun, the one shead taken from the FBI guard, still hidden in her boot. She could feel it, hard against her ankle. To get it, shead have to lean over, pull up her pants leg, reach into her boot . . . Impossible. Hopeless.

Or maybe not.

Shead unlock the door, climb into the back to untie Razeen from where John had tethered him to the floor. And while she was doing that, with her back to the raincoats, she would pull up her pant leg, reach into her boot for her gun.

And shead fire a bullet into Razeenas head at close range.

She had to do it. It was Razeen or Amy.

She had to kill Razeen. She didnat have a choice.

Razeen would forgive her. She knew that.

She would die right now, too, because after killing Razeen, the gunmen would kill her. She knew that, without a doubt.

She reached for the keys, and around her, the world had gone into sharp focus. The motel clerk was still watching them through the window. A maintenance man, baseball cap pulled low over his face, was pushing a cart of dirty sheets and towels across the driveway, the wheels rattling noisily on the cracked pavement. He shouted in rapid-fire Spanish up to the maids who were cleaning a room on the second floor, a vacuum cleaner holding the door open, aHo, Renetta, thereas a phone call for you in the maintenance room!a aHeall need to be untied,a she said to necklace man, her voice amazingly smooth. aIall have to go into the back to reach the ropes.a One of the maids came out of the room and leaned over the railing, shouting back, still in Spanish. aYou must be mistaken. Thereas no one named Renetta here.a aMaybe they asked for Rene. How do I know?a The maintenance man was nearly on top of them with the cart, and the raincoats shifted uneasily, looking to Necklace for direction.

Meg took advantage of the distraction to unlock the front door and to push the button that would release the child restraint lock in the back.

aThereas no Rene here, either,a came the reply in Spanish. aWhat are you doing with that cart? I just took that to the laundry room!a Meg froze. Could it be . . . ? Was it possible . . . ? She didnat want to turn around, didnat want to look at the man. Please donat let it be John, she prayed as she reached to open the back door of her car. Please donat let him be killed, too.

Necklace shook his head at the raincoats in warning, pulling the open front of his own coat closed, murmuring, aLet him go past.a From the corner of her eyes, Meg saw that the maintenance man was paying them no attention at all. He was still pushing the cart, looking up at the maid, shouting angrily back to her. aI donat have time to act as your secretary. Next time the phone rings, you take your big fat ass down the stairs and answer it yourself!a The maid screeched with outrage, raining an eruption of Spanish down upon them.

Meg opened the back door just as the maintenance man pushed the laundry carta"harda"into the raincoats.

It happened so quickly. One second she was about to step into the back of her car, and the next she was being pushed inside, pressed down onto the floor.

aNobody moves, nobody blinks or Razeenas brains are on the back window!a It was John.

Meg turned her head to see that somehow head taken one of those deadly assault weapons away from one of the raincoats. He held it with an easy familiarity, its barrel jammed right beneath Razeenas chin.

No one moved.

aYou okay?a he asked her quietly.

She nodded, unable to speak, trying not to shake. God damn it, she could have done this!

aYou still have the car keys?a She did. Shead slipped them back into her pocket. She managed another nod.

aGood. Get ready to use aem,a he ordered. aWhen I tell you to, climb over the seat and get us the hell out of here. Can you do that?a aYeah.a Meg found her voice. He must have followed her here. How in Godas name had he managed to follow her here?

aHands on top of your heads,a he commanded the raincoats in a voice that implied dire consequences should he be disobeyed. aMove slowly, keep aem where I can see aem. And step back, away from the car.a Meg couldnat see the raincoats. All she could see was Johnas ear and the tense muscle jumping in his jaw as he waited to see if the GIK terrorists would follow his orders.

Or try to kill him without injuring Razeen.

Meg wanted to shout at him. To ask him why head followed her and put himself back into this danger. She wanted to hold him close and thank him, reverently, for coming to her rescue yet again, for making it so that she didnat have to kill Razeen right here and now. She wanted to apologize again, to tell John she really was sorry. She shouldnat have gotten him involved in any of this. She should have executed Razeen in the K-stani embassy menas room, while she had the chance.

She kept her mouth shut, knowing that the last thing she should do was distract him while he was attempting the impossiblea"and managing their escape.

aNow!a he said to Meg.

Meg went. Out from under him, up and over the seat. But one glance in the rearview mirror reminded her that they were parked in by the cargo vana"there was nowhere to go.

aGo, go, go!a John shouted.

She had the key in the ignition and the car in reverse and she braced herself and floored ita"slamming them back into the van with a screech of bending metal, pushing it out of their way.

aKeep your head down!a John shouted, and she ducked just as the windshield shattered with a deafening roar.

Necklace was shooting at them.

Meg jammed the car into first and pulled out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

Still alive.

For now.

Twenty.