FRIDAy, JUNE 20, 2003

“I hate it here. I want to leave,” Sam said for the godzillionth time. It was amazing that Alyssa was still there in his hospital room, still sitting by his bed. He would have either driven his own self crazy or bored himself to tears a long time ago.

“I know,” Alyssa said with patience that was admirable. She took his hand, which was very nice. “But the doctors say you’ve got to wait until—”

“How do they know how I’m feeling?”

“Well, I think they know because they ask you and they take your vital signs and—”

Something about the way she was sitting or talking or something reminded him of...

“Did I dream Mary Lou coming in here and having a conversation with you?” he interrupted her.

“No,” she said. “She was in here. Yesterday afternoon. You were still completely out of it.”

“Maybe not completely. Did you...?” Sam laughed. “I’m sure I dreamed this.” He looked hard at her. “Mary Lou asked if you were going to marry me, and you said—”

“Yes.”

She was looking back at him, a little smiling playing about the edges of her mouth.

Holy fuck.

Sam was having trouble breathing, but it had nothing to do with his medical condition. “Does this mean I asked you to...?”

Alyssa nodded. “Oh, yeah.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t remember?”

He laughed. “No. Jesus.” He put his hand over his heart. It was pounding so hard, he was surprised the nurse wasn’t in here, making sure he wasn’t about to die. “And you actually said... yes?”

“Well, I haven’t exactly said yes directly to you, since you pretty much lost consciousness,” she told him. “So... yes.”

Sam reached for her, and she sat on the edge of his bed so he could kiss her.

He definitely wasn’t bored anymore.

She pulled back. “Easy there. Did the doctor say you could kiss me like that?”

“What did I say?” Sam really wanted to know. “I mean, how’d I talk you into it? I was sure I was going to have to talk for hours.”

Alyssa was trying her damnedest not to laugh. “What do you think you said?”

Uh-oh.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I was planning to give you this speech about how much I love you and want you in my life, and that I was willing to wait until you were ready, that I was more than willing to do this entire relationship thing your way. Your call. Your rules. If you wanted us to date for a few years before we even thought about getting married, well, I’d do it. Gladly. And if you wanted to get married tomorrow, I’d do that, too. The only thing I wasn’t going to do was take no for an answer. I didn’t need a yes right away, but I would not take a no.” He looked at her hopefully. “Is that what I said?”

Alyssa nodded, and he could’ve sworn she was still trying not to laugh. “Pretty much.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “I really love you, Sam.”

Well, that brought tears to his eyes.

He couldn’t believe he’d finally managed to say the right thing.

MONDAy, JUNE 23, 2003

Max woke up to find Jules Cassidy sitting by his hospital bed.

“Hey,” Jules said. “Welcome back, nap boy.”

Nap boy? “Are you here to break me out?” Max asked.

“No, sir, just to provide a thrilling mix of entertainment and information—to keep you updated as to what’s going on in the real world. As opposed to this hideous alternate reality where they serve orange Jell-O every day with lunch.”

“Sam Starrett went home two days ago,” Max complained.

“Two fucking days ago,” Jules said in something that was supposed to be a Texas drawl. “Where’s Gina, boss?”

“I don’t know,” Max said. “Maybe she went back to New York.” He glared at Jules, who was responsible for bringing her here. “Where she belongs.”

One of the nurses stepped into the room. “Are you looking for your daughter?”

Jules laughed. “Gina’s actually my daughter.”

She blinked at him. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought...”

Max just shook his head and closed his eyes.

“She went downstairs to get some coffee,” the nurse said.

“Let’s start with the stuff you might not want Gina to hear,” Jules said. “Like this letter that came today from Allen Bryant?”

Max opened his eyes to look at the piece of paper Jules was holding out.

“You might recognize the seal of the United States President on his letterhead,” Jules continued. “Apparently he has rejected your letter of resignation.”

Max would’ve sighed, but sighing hurt too much. “That was private.”

“Was private,” Jules agreed. “Not so much anymore, seeing how since you’ve been laid up, Laronda is opening your mail. She’s madder than hell that you didn’t tell her about this—”

“I was going to.”

“She’s planning to shoot you again when you get out of the hospital. So you might want to take your time with the whole recovery thing. And then go into hiding.”

Max took the letter and read it. While discretion was always appreciated, there was no problem for an unmarried team leader to have a relationship with a woman—also unmarried—well over the age of consent. Yada yada yada, this woman’s experiences as a hostage took place years ago, yada yada yada, no need for discipline of any kind.

In other words, Max’s boss, and his boss’s boss, which would be President Bryant, saw no wrongdoing in Max’s actions.

Swell.

Except for the fact that Max didn’t see it the same way.

But okay. “You think I should stay on? As team leader?” he asked Jules.

“I think this letter says you don’t have a choice.”

“What am I going to do about Gina?”

“Well, you could decide to forsake women altogether.” Jules was actually fluttering his eyelashes at him. But then he grinned. “Have you been suitably entertained yet?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “You can stop.”

“You want to hear the latest on Warren Canton, also known as Husaam Abdul-Fataah, also known as the terrorist who shot your ass?” Jules asked.

Max just waited. Jules would tell him sooner or later. And Max sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere.

“Here’s how all this went down, according to the information we’ve gathered from the various interviews.

“Fact: Warren Canton, aka Abdul-Fataah, has been linked to an Afghanistan military officer—forgive me for mentally misplacing his name, but it’s a mouthful—who had access to weapons that were allegedly placed on a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter before it crashed in January 2002. Allegedly placed, but not in reality. There was an entire crate that never made it on board thanks to Abdul-Fataah and his friend.

“Fact: The chopper crashed and was submerged in a mountain lake. SEAL Team Sixteen stepped in either to salvage the weapons or to make sure they were destroyed. The area was hot, there were time pressures, so SEAL commander Paoletti opted to scuttle both the Black Hawk and the weapons, and he signed off that all was destroyed without taking a week to do an inventory of equipment. This is done all the time in front line conditions.

“Fact: Three of those weapons that were signed off as destroyed by Commander Paoletti were used in the Coronado attack.

“Theory: Canton used those weapons on purpose, as a genuine attempt to throw suspicion on a Spec Ops team that had an excellent combat record against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

“Fact: Mary Lou Starrett and Kelly Ashton Paoletti were both targeted by Canton one to two months before the terrorist attack in Coronado. Mary Lou knew him as Bob Schwegel, an insurance salesman, Kelly as Doug Fisk, pharmaceutical salesman.

“Theory: Canton discovered that the trunk of Mary Lou’s car was broken and that she worked at the McDonald’s that was on the Navy base. When he decided Mary Lou would be his way to smuggle in the weapons he needed, he—fact—broke off contact with Kelly.

“Fact: Mary Lou found and touched—hence her fingerprints—an automatic weapon in the trunk of her car and believed that weapon belonged to her husband, Sam Starrett, a member of SEAL Team Sixteen. Because of their marital problems, she never actually questioned him about it, and the weapon mysteriously disappeared.

“Fact: Canton met Ihbraham Rahman, an Arab American, while in Mary Lou Starrett’s company. Rahman could—and did—identify him.

“Fact: Mary Lou Starrett put two and two together incorrectly on the morning of the attack and called 911, believing that her friend Ihbraham Rahman and his brothers were involved in the assassination attempt. She didn’t identify herself to the operator when she made that phone call.

“Fact: Mary Lou Starrett filed for divorce and fled to Florida the day after the Coronado attack. She did not come forward with her information, because she feared repercussion.

“Fact: During their relationship, Mary Lou told Canton about finding the gun in the trunk of her car, blaming its presence there on her husband.

“Theory: Canton realized that Mary Lou’s fingerprints were on that weapon, and knew that sooner or later, she would be apprehended. She could—and did—identify him.

“Fact: Sam Starrett’s house was broken into two weeks after the Coronado attack. Nothing was stolen. A police report was filed.

“Theory: Canton was looking for Mary Lou’s whereabouts but didn’t find any leads because Starrett kept all of his personal files in his office on base.

“Fact: Ihbraham Rahman’s phone was altered to allow Canton to have a record of all calls he made and received. It wasn’t a tap—conversations couldn’t be overheard—but phone numbers could be traced.

“Theory: Instead of killing Ihbraham Rahman, who could identify him, too, Canton monitored his telephone calls, assuming that sooner or later, Mary Lou would get in touch with him.

“Fact: Mary Lou’s sister Janine did call Rahman, from the house they shared with Janine’s soon to be ex-husband, Clyde Wrigley. Janine spoke to Rahman, who urged Mary Lou to call him. Mary Lou, now believing Rahman wasn’t involved, was afraid to contact him, fearing such contact would be dangerous for him.

“Fact: The next day, Mary Lou, Haley, and Janine moved out of Clyde’s house, without telling Clyde where they were going.

“Theory: Canton used the information from Rahman’s phone to get Mary Lou’s phone number and address, and sent someone to Sarasota, to find her and kill her. But there was no sign of her at Clyde’s—she’d moved out. One of Canton’s men watched Clyde, following him in the hope that he’d lead them to Mary Lou, while Canton continued to monitor Ihbraham’s phone.

“Fact: Clyde bumped into a friend of Janine’s who knew where Janine was working. Clyde went to her place of employment, followed her home.

“Theory: Canton’s man was following Clyde, saw Janine, who fit the description of Mary Lou and who was also driving Mary Lou’s car—fact. After Clyde slinks off, Canton’s man goes to the back door and blows away Janine, thinking he’s wasted Mary Lou.

“Canton’s man reports in. Mary Lou is dead. Canton asks, what about the kid and the sister? The man is like, what kid, what sister? Canton comes to Sarasota to make sure his guy killed the right sister.

“Fact: Mary Lou is on her way home and sees Canton outside of her house—she keeps driving, but later goes back and finds Janine, dead.

“Theory: Canton went inside, saw Janine, and knew Mary Lou was still alive. The hunt continues—including the monitoring of Ihbraham’s telephone.

“Fact: Mary Lou’s car—the vehicle Janine was driving on the day she was killed—has turned up abandoned and stripped.

“Theory: Canton moved it out of the driveway for some reason—possibly because his fingerprints may still have been in or on the trunk, possibly to throw off friends and neighbors who might otherwise have come looking for Janine. We’re not really sure, but the car did turn up just a few days ago, in Orlando.

“Fact: Mary Lou tells her employer’s daughter, Whitney Turlington, that she had a romantic relationship with Ihbraham Rahman, and Whitney plays matchmaker, calling Ihbraham and telling him that Mary Lou needs him, that her ex-husband is trying to kill her.

“Fact: She makes that call from a pay phone, so Canton doesn’t have the Turlingtons’ address.

“Fact: Ihbraham is curious, because in past conversations, Mary Lou has told him that Sam Starrett would never hit a woman. He goes to Starrett’s house, but no one’s home. Donny DaCosta, Starrett’s neighbor, sees Rahman and also sees Canton following Rahman.

“Theory: Canton realizes that DaCosta can identify him and puts him on his list of people to remove—which includes Kelly Ashton Paoletti.

“Fact: Ihbraham Rahman drives from San Diego to Sarasota in about thirty-six hours—which is extremely impressive—with Canton’s men on his tail.

“Fact: Canton, using the alias Doug Fisk, takes an airline flight from San Diego to Sarasota, approximately one hour before a car bomb destroys half of Don DaCosta’s house, killing DaCosta and injuring Kelly Paoletti.

“Fact: Mere minutes after Rahman arrives at the Turlington estate, Canton arrives, too, with five of his men. They kill the guards and cut the phone lines and call the main house.

“Theory: Canton was attempting to walk out of the area, in full view of everyone, when you stopped him. Which was pretty fucking unbelievable, boss. Very James Bond of you—going one on one with the villain. You know, if you hadn’t done that, we probably wouldn’t have apprehended him and gotten his fingerprints and a crapload of additional information, as well as the pleasure of knowing this guy’s never going to hurt anyone again.

“This is huge,” Jules told Max, and for once he was dead serious. “If I were the President, I wouldn’t let you quit, either. It’s an honor, sir, to be on your team.”

Max didn’t know what to say. “Thank you, but...” But what the hell was he going to do about Gina?

She chose that moment to breeze into the room. “Hey, you’re awake.”

Max found it impossible not to smile back at her. When she was in the room, he was undeniably glad that she was here with him. It was the other times that he began to panic.

Jules stood up. “I’ve got to go.” He headed toward the door, but then did a U-turn. “You understand that Canton’s connection to Afghanistan clears Tom Paoletti, right?”

Max nodded, watching Gina settle into the chair that Jules had just vacated, the book she was reading aloud to him in her hands. “Yeah. I’m glad about that.”

Jules nodded. “About that other thing we discussed... I think you can probably cut yourself a little slack.”

Max knew Jules was talking about Gina.

“See you, boss,” he said, then leaned over to kiss Gina right on the mouth. “Later, gorgeous.”

The room was significantly quieter without Jules in it.

Max looked at Gina. “You know, the nurse thinks you’re my daughter.”

She laughed. “No, she doesn’t. I told her to say that,” she said. “Your blood pressure was a little low this morning.”

“It’s not anymore.”

“Good,” she said. She opened the book and started to read, her hand warm on his leg.

It felt good there. Too good.

But the rest of him hurt, so Max closed his eyes and took Jules’s advice and cut himself some slack.

TUESDAy, JUNE 24, 2003

“The guards are gone,” Kelly said as Tom came into her hospital room.

“The charges have been dropped,” he said. “Well, I’m not sure charges were ever officially made, but you know what I mean.”

“That is such good news.” She was looking terrific this morning. She actually had a little color in her cheeks. But she had total bed-head.

He got her brush from her drawer.

“You’re not wearing your uniform,” she also noted.

“Yeah,” he said, looking down at his jeans and sneakers. He forced a smile. “Weird, huh?”

“Did you...?”

“Yeah,” he said as he started brushing her hair. “I’m out. I’m done. As of this morning, it’s official. They offered a desk job, but—”

“You don’t need to explain.”

But there was something he needed to talk about. Tom cleared his throat. “I, uh, got a call about thirty minutes ago from the CIA.”

Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. “They want you to work for them? I’m not sure I want you to—”

“Not exactly. They want to, um, hire my team.”

Kelly didn’t get it. He just braided her hair, waiting for her to understand.

She laughed when the light went on. “Really?”

“Those rumors you started have turned into something a little more solid than I’d anticipated. Apparently, Alyssa Locke is going to be my executive officer.”

And Kelly wasn’t too happy about that. “I’m not sure she’s such a good choice—”

He leaned over and kissed her. “Yeah, you’re just jealous. I love it.”

“Well, yeah, because she’s gorgeous and she adores you and—”

Tom fished in the drawer for a ponytail holder. “And she’s marrying Sam Starrett—who’s also apparently part of my team.”

“Wait a minute,” Kelly said. “Is that the rumor or...?”

“No, she’s really marrying Starrett.”

“I thought he just got a divorce.”

Tom poked her. “Some people don’t need to take years and years before they remarry.”

“Hey, be nice to me, I’m in the hospital.”

“I noticed. You want some lotion?”

“No, thanks, I’m okay,” she said. “Thanks for the braid.”

“Anytime. I’m good with hair. Mine used to be about that long in high school, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kelly smiled at him.

She swore she’d always had a thing for Jean-Luc Picard. Good thing, because she was now married to a man who was on the verge of being very bald.

“So what did you tell the CIA?” she asked.

He laughed. “What do you think? I told them I don’t really have a team together.”

“Yet,” Kelly added.

“Yet,” Tom agreed.

His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the screen and laughed.

“Who is it?” Kelly asked.

“Sam Starrett,” he told her. “Probably wondering where he can put his desk.”