As soon as Tobias could get a cell signal from the Land Rover, he called Agent Turner and filled her in. Naturally she was furious, but only yelled at him for a brief time until she hung up to mobilize a response.

Then he called Will and Ben. "I'm flying the chopper up," Ben said right away.

"No need. The FBI's got this."

"So at worst I get in some night flying practice. I'm coming." When Ben talked in that tone, there was no point arguing, so he didn't. Instead he scouted out a good landing site and sent Ben the coordinates.

When the brothers had purchased the Robinson helicopter for Knight and Day, they'd wanted it for ocean rescues, or natural disasters. Tobias certainly hadn't pictured it as the getaway vehicle from a fringe militia group. But so be it.

Will hopped in the big Ford Super Duty he’d borrowed from the Jupiter Point Hotshots and headed toward the compound. Knowing his brothers were on their way was a huge relief, but he wouldn’t breathe easy until he laid eyes on Carolyn and Sarah.

After all that groundwork had been laid, Tobias parked his Land Rover as close to the westernmost point of the Light Keepers property. He dug a pair of night vision goggles out of the bag of gear he kept in the back of his rig. In the greenish darkness they created, he hiked through the fields until he reached the fence line.

There, he watched and waited. He didn't have wire cutters, so he found a hole in the fence and gradually managed to widen it, relying on his hand strength for the job. At one point, he heard the thunk-thunk of the chopper setting down in the field. He'd instructed Ben to stay in the pilot's seat, ready for a quick escape.

He stayed still and watchful, a shadow in the night, and thought of his father. As an army sniper, how many hours had his father passed like this? Alert but still, waiting on a knife's edge? What did he think about? Robert Knight hadn't married and started a family until after he left the army. Had he wanted to? Did he dream of coming home to Jupiter Point? Was he already in love with Janine?

Tobias would never know these things. He could never ask his father. Because someone had reached out from the past and snuffed out his life. In that moment, an explosion of grief radiated through him, like a nuclear blast. Oh Dad. You stubborn, upright, dedicated, strict, difficult, wonderful man. I loved you.

A blinding flash of emotion lit up all the corners of his heart—the guilt, the penance, the grief. And you knew that. I don't have to worry. I don't have to atone.

Right. That's not your job. Your job is to live.

It sounded like his father's voice, the hushed whisper of a ghost. But it wasn't. It was him. All him. The deepest, wisest part of him.

Tobias shook himself back to attention, feeling as if he'd traveled a great distance in that brief moment. He checked the dark fields again, lit a garish green through his goggles.

Will appeared at his side, squeezing his shoulder as he crouched next to him. “Anything yet?”

“No.”

“Should we go in?”

“Not yet, I don’t want to set off any alarm bells. I don’t know their cameras, their systems. If we hear anything that doesn’t sound right, we’ll go in.”

“Roger that.”

“Ben?”

“Standing by. About a quarter mile away, out of sight. He said the chopper flew like a dream on the way up.”

Good man. Both of them.

They settled into silence. More time passed, but it had a different quality now that he had company. His brother’s company, best of all.

And finally, there they were! A cluster of dark figures stumbled exhausted across the field. Wait—holy shit, that was more than just Carolyn and Sarah. Jesus, it was a whole group, ranging from little to nearly adult-size. What the hell had happened? Carolyn must have decided to spring all the children.

Good for her.

“That’s a lot of kids,” Will murmured.

“How many can the chopper carry?”

“I’ll fit the rest in the Super Duty. It’s a good thing I brought it. I had a feeling it would come in handy.”

Tobias jumped up and waved to draw their attention to their location. The group veered their direction.

The first kid to reach the fence was a tall, gangly teenager carrying a smaller child. He was panting so hard Tobias could barely make out his words.

"Caro…Moore…back…"

"Carolyn?" he asked sharply. "Did something happen?" He scanned the group and didn't see her. More kids arrived, piling up behind the hole in the fence. He helped them through, one by one, until they were all on the other side. Little Sarah hugged his leg.

The first kid finally caught his breath. "They were following us. Carolyn stayed back to do something."

"Do something?" Shit, shit, shit … she was putting herself in the line of fire…shit…

“Go,” said Will. “I got this.” He was already shepherding them in the direction of the chopper. “Follow me, everyone. Who’s up for a ride in a helicopter?”

Tobias gripped the edges of the hole in the fence, using all his force to expand it enough so he could fit through. Damn, why’d he have to be such a big bastard?

When the hole was finally large enough, he squeezed through it, then double-checked on the .45 he'd stashed in the back of his jeans. Staying low to the ground, he ran in the direction the kids had come from.

After about five minutes, he heard voices, and dropped to the ground. On elbows and knees, silent as a snake, he made his way toward them.

And what he saw made his blood turn cold. Carolyn was with two Light Keeper men, one of whom had her in a headlock—with a knife at the side of her neck. The other had a shotgun aimed at her heart.

She had a weapon slung over her back, so they must have surprised her before she had a chance to grab it.

Caro spoke calmly, but her voice was thick with fear. "Don't make the kind of mistake you can't recover from, guys. The FBI is going to be here any minute. You can still survive this, if you don't do anything stupid like kill someone."

"Accidents happen." The man with the shotgun laughed. His voice sounded young—and weirdly familiar. "It's dark out here and you're trespassing. You attacked us."

"That's how it looks to me, too," said the Light Keeper with the knife. "And according to our code, we'll be forgiven because you're a pariah."

"The U.S. Government doesn't recognize your code, idiots," Carolyn gasped. She was staring at the gunman. "Joseph Brown, is that you?

A pause, then, "Yah, so what?"

"You're better than this. You went to college, you know there's a whole world out there. You don't have to do this."

"Shut up," he hissed.

"The FBI knows about you. I talked to them myself."

"We're not afraid of the FBI. Let them come." The guard who was holding her shifted his grip, tilting her head back. The moonlight caught the long arch of her neck and gleamed on the knife's curving blade. And for one long, agonizing moment, Tobias teetered on the edge of madness. Visions of his father, throat slashed, attacked him like rabid bats, blinding him, blocking his vision. A kind of howl echoed through his brain.

He had to act—now—or Carolyn might be dead in the grass, bleeding out. But in the dark, even with his night vision goggles, he couldn't see where the Light Keeper ended and Carolyn began. He had to throw them off somehow. Gain an advantage.

"FBI," he called. "Put your weapons down. You're surrounded."

Joseph Brown swung around and fired in his direction. Something nicked Tobias’s leg, but he made no sound. He couldn't allow the men to think he was hurt.

"You just earned yourself an assault on a federal officer charge," he said. He fired wide of the group, just to make sure they got the message. He pretended to speak into a comm. "Found them, about two hundred yards inside the fence line, due east. Hostage situation in progress, request—"

"Hey." Joseph took a step toward him—away from Carolyn. "She's not a hostage. We caught her trespassing and trying to kidnap a bunch of kids."

Savage triumph filled him. They believed he was the FBI. But he still had to get them away from Carolyn. "We can sort out the situation as soon as you step away from the woman. I'm going to need everyone to put their weapons down."

Joseph Brown followed his command, lowering the shotgun, but the other, the one with his knife still at Carolyn's throat, refused. "Let us go or I'll cut her."

"I don't think you understand how this works." Tobias had to work overtime to keep his voice calm. "If any harm comes to her, you'll answer for it to the fullest extent of the law. You have no leverage here. Your only good option is to disarm. Right now." He added an extra whiplash of authority to his voice.

"If I do, you're going to arrest me, aren't you? Once I let her go, I have no guarantee you won't."

That was true—or would have been if he'd actually been FBI.

"We'll be questioning all of you, including the woman. Now put down the knife and we can figure this out."

De-escalation. Get them to put down their arms, that was the first step. Maybe there was a way out of this without bloodshed.

Or maybe not.

The man moved again, turning Carolyn's body so she would shield him from any gunfire coming from Tobias’s direction.

Carolyn's eyes flashed with terror. And Tobias couldn't wait another moment. Bullets be damned.

He launched himself toward Carolyn and her captor. Something brushed his arm—another bullet?—but he felt no pain. The only thing that mattered was keeping Caro whole and alive.

Everything moved in slow-motion, the way Tobias remembered from high-intensity combat situations. Carolyn stomped on the guard's foot and dropped to the ground, rolling away from him. Her attacker crouched to face Tobias, swinging the knife in one hand. Joseph fired again, but the bullets went high and wild.

With one part of his brain, he realized that Joseph didn’t actually want to kill him. If he did, he’d probably be dead by now.

He saw the guard with the knife slash at him, Joseph lift his shotgun again. He had no plan to deal with them both, other than to disable the knife-wielder first, then tackle the other one, assuming he was still alive to do so.

Even that vague outline of a plan went out the window, as Carolyn darted around the knifeman and tackled Joseph at the knees, like some kind of pro football player. Tobias viciously chopped at the other guard's arm, choosing a spot that would stun his nerves. The knife dropped away, but the man didn't give up. He charged him like a raging bull, all fury and spittle.

That, Tobias could handle. They grappled for several intense moments, rolling back and forth in the grass, until finally Tobias got him pinned on his back. One last solid uppercut to the jaw knocked him out cold.

He rolled away, panting heavily, and found Carolyn kneeling next to him, patiently waiting for him to finish. He ripped the night vision goggles off his face. She was breathing hard, her hair a tangled mess down her back, a trickle of blood on her neck. But she was smiling brilliantly in the rising moonlight, and Joseph Brown was sprawled behind her, unconscious.

"How's that nonviolent communication working out for you?" Even though she said it lightly, her voice shook.

He sat up and wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in the soft skin at the crook of her neck. He breathed in the scent of her, the underlying sweetness mingled with the sharp scent of fear and the metallic smell of blood. So close. He'd come so close to losing Carolyn.

He felt her tremble in his arms. Those delicate bones, that soft skin, her caring heart and bright spirit—all wrapped up with the pure titanium toughness at Carolyn's core. She was it for him. Forevermore.

"You came for me," she whispered. "I was so terrified, I could feel how much they hated me. I thought they were going to kill me and bury me in the field somewhere. Then I heard your voice and it was like the sun coming up. I knew it would be okay."

He shook with full-body tremors as the past few moments of utter terror came back to him. "He had a knife on you. A fucking knife. He almost killed you."

"I'm fine." She put her hands on his cheeks, which he realized were wet with tears. Tears? When did he ever cry? He wasn't a crier, never had been. Not since he was little. "I'm fine. You saved me. Everything's going to be okay," she kept murmuring. Her voice was pitched low to soothe him, and it worked. Slowly, by gradual degrees, he relaxed and his head cleared.

He realized they were huddled together in an open moonlit field with two fallen armed guards nearby. And more possibly on the way.

"We need get the hell out of here before more crazies with guns come after us."

"Yes. Can you stand?"

He heaved himself to his feet, ignoring the pain. Blood dripped down his left arm and right leg.

"Oh my God, Tobias." Tears gleaming in her eyes, she came next to him and pulled his good arm over her shoulder. "Can you walk? That looks terrible."

"No walking. We have to run. Let's go."

Together they half-limped, half-ran toward the hole in the fence. In the distance, from the direction of the compound, voices shouted. Up ahead, he heard the flap-flap of the Knight and Day helicopter's blades. Ben was lifting off with his payload of kids. Hopefully Will was already on the road with the rest of them.

Just as they reached the fence, the gangly, ghostly silhouette of the helicopter rose over the treetops. Lights off, it briefly blocked the stars as it gained altitude. Go, go, he urged Ben silently. Don't worry about us, we got this.

He and Carolyn would survive this. Beyond that, he had no idea.