“Because I do. I have friends who love me and . . . people I love . . . Do you have people you love?”
He shook his head.
“Really? No one? Not even your mother?”
Trust me. Orion’s mouth moved and maybe he didn’t really say that, but she wanted to believe he did. Then he moved out of her periphery, and she was alone.
“My mother’s dead.”
“I get that, Akif. My mother died, too. She was murdered by someone she trusted. That’s a terrible way to die—to be betrayed, right?”
“America betrays its people,” he snapped. His hand was trembling.
And she didn’t know how hard it might be to hold his thumb over that trigger, just right, without accidentally depressing it, so . . .
“America isn’t just the government. It’s the people too. Good people who want to just go home and love their family and live safe lives. People who don’t betray each other. People who believe in good—and do good. Can’t we do that—go home to the people we love? Do good to each other?”
He hesitated, and a tiny whimper emitted out of him.
“Akif, is someone making you do this terrible thing?”
Nothing.
Ham had edged away, disappeared.
“Akif, you can trust me. And my friends. We can help you.”
“No one can help me,” he whispered. His arm tightened around her neck, started to cut off her air. “And now no one can help you, either.”
Her hand went to his arm, pulling at it. “Akif, this is not the way to change the world—”
“Shut up.” He cursed, and the vile sound of it went to her bones.
Maybe it’s time to let God fight our battles, too.
Yes, God, please—
Then she spotted Ham. His gaze drilled into hers and he gave her a tiny nod.
She closed her eyes.
Then, her world exploded.
Orion’s old instincts, worn, tried, hardened—like his boots—simply kicked in.
He’d taken too long to put himself back together, splashing water on his face, telling himself that he wasn’t an idiot for checking himself out of the hospital after surgery. He hated hospitals with everything inside him. And he hadn’t wanted to spend one single moment away from Jenny.
Clearly for good reason, because he’d exited the bathroom to find her in the grip of the jerk waiter who’d bumped into her.
His heartbeat had gone into overdrive.
But it didn’t take long for Orion to do the math. For him to not only recognize the danger, but also the woman he saw on the mountain, the determined champion climber who looked at him with steel in her eyes before she tried to ascend the wall to rescue them.
Yeah, she was a warrior—even a rescuer—and he must have been blind not to see that part of her heart in Afghanistan. He’d been so wrapped up in himself and the fact that he was Something Special.
Right. His injury had kicked that right out of him. Maybe that’s what had him the angriest.
He wasn’t the man he thought he was.
But maybe that guy dying made room for him to be the man he was supposed to be.
He had to admit that his timing emerging from the bathroom was exactly right, because after he’d gotten over the sheer terror at seeing Jenny in the grip of that man, he realized . . .
The man couldn’t see him.
That’s when Orion tucked away the panic and found the place he hadn’t really forgotten. The place where he saw it all like a math problem, where emotions couldn’t have their sway. The place he’d fled to when a missile had shot Nickles and Dirk out of the sky. The place he’d tenaciously guarded when the pain tried to find him.
The place he’d hid when his anger wanted to dismantle him. “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” His fear. His hurt. His panic. His helplessness.
Thanks, Dad.
Now, think, son.
A security guard had hustled up. Lanky, early twenties, the man looked fresh out of rent-a-cop school. Orion stopped him, grabbed his radio. “Sorry. I’ll give it back.”
“Hey—we need that.”
Orion ignored him. “Ham, tell me you’re listening.”
He stayed back, and from this angle couldn’t see well into the room, but yes, there, in the back—Ham had moved away from the crowd. He turned and backed a security guard into the wall, took his radio from him.
Mmmhmm. No one argued with Ham. “I gotcha, Ry. Where are you?”
“South of Jenny, by thirty feet or so, by the bathrooms. They can’t see me.”
“Isaac’s people are all in the room with us,” Ham said. “It looks like this guy is serious. Jenny is trying to talk him down.”
Of course she was.
“The Anchorage SWAT team has been called, but—”
“They’re never going to get here in time.” Jake’s voice cut into Ham’s words.
Orion looked up, searching. He spotted Jake waving from across the open lobby, in the lounge on the opposite side. He lowered his hand.
“One of the local security guys loaned me his weapon. A .45 XDM. It’ll do the job.”
Loaned? Orion noticed that Ham didn’t ask.
“It’s only thirty feet. I can take the shot, but . . .”
“What about the bomb? And Jenny?” Orion said.
“You get the shot, Jake,” Ham said. “Orion, you get Jenny. I’ll cover the bomb. If we can separate him from that trigger—maybe I can push him over the edge, away from the crowd.”
Orion didn’t like the sound of any of that.
Neither, apparently, did Jake. He cast Orion a look across the expanse. But really, what choice did they have?
“Let’s give Jenny a chance to talk him down,” Orion said. “I’m going to get closer.”
Tucking the radio into his belt, he eased toward the now-empty mezzanine. Just Jenny and the bomber edged up next to the balcony.
He stopped just inside her periphery. Jenny, look at me.
She might have heard his internal pleading because she moved her eyes in his direction. She was speaking in low tones to the man. “I have friends who love me and . . . people I love . . .”
Her words threatened to release the latch on his emotions. But maybe . . . maybe that wasn’t such a terrible thing.
His gaze didn’t waver off Jenny, and he moved his mouth. I love you, Jenny. Trust me.
He prayed she’d seen him as he edged away.
“SWAT is twenty minutes out,” Ham said.
Orion kept his voice low. “He’s sweating and trembling, and I don’t think we have twenty minutes.”
“They’re already clearing the building,” Jake said.
Indeed, the lobby was empty, and even the room behind Ham was being cleared, minus the senator’s security guys.
Wait. Something about the bomber . . . “Ham . . . look at this guy. Isn’t he the guy from the rally in New York City? The skinny kid on the subway?” Orion studied him, tried to imagine him in a sweatshirt and a NYU backpack.
“I think it is,” Ham said. “Maybe that’s why he freaked out—maybe he recognized me.”
“If it’s him, then this is his second attempt. Which means he’s serious. So serious, he’s going to be here to see it through.”