Kalani watched the concentration on Ethan’s face harden as he swerved the car through interstate traffic. She was glad to have been relieved of driving duties. She was glad Ethan was in the front seat with her, and not in the back with a gun aimed at him.

Instead, the back seat contained Logan, who kept watch over Olive Drab through the folded-down rear seat. He lay inside the trunk, silently stewing the whole time. And that was okay. His voice wouldn’t exactly be a welcome addition to the Bach concerto Ethan had insisted on. Something classy to drown out the voice of the straitjacketed man stuffed into their trunk. It was quite the carload.

“They can’t stay up there forever,” Logan said, talking about the private plane flying 20,000 feet above them—somewhere. It was a similar comment to the one Jackson had made over the radio when they first called in.

Through the night, Jackson’s team had raided the cave only to find the vacated remains of what appeared to be a monitoring station. Now it was time for DARC Ops to do the monitoring, tracking the flight of N2820DX after it had fled from the cargo airport.

“I imagine the Feds are following it,” Ethan said.

Kalani said, “Of course they’re following it.”

“I meant behind it. Flying behind it.”

“I just hope they don’t shoot it down,” she said, still thinking of Lea. Still having some mysterious, lingering sympathy for her sister. There must have been some sort of explanation for why she ran back into that damned hangar. Right?

She said it again, but in a whisper. “They better not shoot it down.”

Ethan frowned. “Why would they do that?”

She didn’t know why. All she could really think of was Tucker, lying there, face covered. So fucking still . . .

The radio suddenly crackled to life with Jackson’s voice. “They’re talking them down. I just talked to someone from Roanoke-Blacksburg air traffic control.”

Ethan grabbed the radio from on top of the dashboard. “So they’re circling back?”

“They practically flew over the safe house,” Jackson said. “But, yes, they circled and they’re due to land there within the hour.”

“Damn it,” Ethan said, “That’s a few minutes before our arrival window.”

“Then speed it up,” Jackson said.

“He’s trying,” Kalani chimed in, her hand gripping the armrest tightly as the car swerved around another group of cars not moving fast enough in the left lane.

“But don’t kill yourself, either,” Jackson said. “That won’t help. I’ll be at the airport in thirty.”

“Thirty minutes? What, are you flying there?” The way Ethan had said it sounded like a joke, but Jackson replied in the affirmative. Tucker had been gone for days. Days of torture, perhaps. No one wanted to leave it a second longer.

“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” Ethan said, gunning it again and swerving around another car.

“Sounds like the pilot smartened up,” Logan said as the radio shut off.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Ethan said. “They talked them down, apparently, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, what do you think it means?” Kalani said.

“It means we should expect desperation . . . They’re obviously running out of fuel, but not bullets.”

Ethan lowered the classical music just long enough to hear the groaning in the trunk. He raised the volume and Kalani felt the car accelerate.

* * *

They’d called ahead and had airport security open the gates onto the runway, but even with the help, the drive was still chaotic. Squad cars and emergency rescue vehicles were parked around the aircraft in random angles. Hurried bodies rushing about. Men in full body armor with various three-letter acronyms on the backs of their vests.

Through the confusion, Kalani saw Dunhill’s landed and surrounded plane. Next to that plane was a larger private jet. Ethan had pointed to it and said, “Looks like Jackson’s here.”

She had flown in it once before, leaving Hawaii in the DARC Ops jet. It was the start of a wonderful yet painfully small window of time where she and Ethan could enjoy a little privacy with each other. A nice break from the action before the commencement of legal proceedings and a witness protection program. Now Kalani hoped they could return there, and as fast as possible.

One of the first things she wanted to ask Jackson about was for a much-needed vacation for her and Ethan. The safe house was initially described as such, but look how that had turned out. She needed a vacation from the vacation. A break from everything but Ethan.

When Ethan parked the car, Kalani looked back at Jackson’s jet at the precise moment when the DARC Ops leader was hustling down the stairs—hands full of body armor. She and Ethan jumped out of the car and met him halfway, strapping on the armor before anyone could even say “hello.”

Finally, after they’d been strapped in and armed, Jackson said, “Good timing.”

“We’ll see,” Ethan replied.

Standing there at the foot of Jackson’s jet, looking over to the other aircraft, Kalani understood the risks. First, the immediate risks to her and Ethan. Then Lea and Tucker, who might possibly get caught in the crossfire if the situation deteriorated any further.

Any injury to Tucker, of course, would be a disaster. But for Lea . . . Kalani still wasn’t sure how willing of an accomplice she’d been. She remembered that distinct look of fear on her face during the incident at the hangar. It was clear that she was not helping Kalani, but also not exactly enjoying the situation.

Ethan had caught Kalani’s attention, his eyes focused hard into hers. “We’ll do everything we can to be careful,” he said. “Everything.”

“I know,” she said. “And there’s Tucker, too.”

“All the more reason we don’t want to go in guns blazing.”

“Hopefully the Feds can talk them down,” Jackson said. “Well, I suppose they’d already talked them down, but talking them out could be a different story.”

“Do we have any plans on our end to infiltrate the aircraft?” Ethan said.

“Not yet.”

“But we have plans for that?”

Jackson was frowning. It was clear he didn’t want to infiltrate. Even Kalani, with no formal military training, could pick up on it. The forces in the plane had the advantage of the high ground. High ground plus concealment. Aside from the few windows, which they’d obviously avoided, it was hard to tell where anyone was. Tucker and Lea, especially. Any unlucky incoming bullet trajectories, and it would be all over.

“The skin of the plane is basically like a strip of plastic, so . . .” Jackson trailed off, and no one needed any further explanation.

There was some trouble going on with the agencies. Various groups of variously acronym’d men had gotten into a full-fledged shouting match over who had “jurisdiction” and who could call the shots.

Jackson swore several times and then said, “Blackwoods . . . they’ve got a lot of friends in law enforcement. Good friends. Maybe even some blackmailed friends. I hope this doesn’t become a whitewash somehow.”

Ethan set his jaw. “It won’t.”

Logan had returned from the melee and said, “The local cops,” as he pointed through the crowd of cars and personnel to a group of local sheriff deputies who had formed a distant semi-circle around Dunhill’s landed plane. “The local boys are trying to turn everyone away.”

Yelling was heard, voices crying out words like “fall back” and “disengage.”

“Fucking alphabet soup,” Jackson muttered. “Should have just ignored them all.”

The yelling was briefly halted by the sound of what could have only been described as a muffled gunshot, the sound coming from inside the plane. It was quiet. Perhaps silenced. One gunshot.

Kalani thought the worst, the sick wonder of who out of Tucker and Lea had gotten hit.

More yelling from the gaggle of law-enforcement agents.

Had there really been a gunshot? Or was it something else?

Jackson said something, a single word that she couldn’t hear, but she could tell caused their plan to be set in motion. Kalani was pushed back toward a large black SUV.

She didn’t bother wondering about it, because she had Ethan with her. He was the one holding her arm, haloing her in.

Were they taking cover from enemy fire?

She sat in the middle seat next to Ethan. Logan was behind the wheel. “The car has armored plating,” Logan said, putting the SUV in reverse. He pulled back, making room to sweep around and exit the immediate cluster of vehicles before threading through.

“What are you doing?” Kalani said. “Go back.”

“I am,” he said. “I am going back.”

“Put your seat belt on,” Ethan said.

“Ethan, what is he trying to—?”

“Put your seat belt on!” He reached around her, grabbing it and hauling it over her shoulder.

When she looked up after clicking the buckle, the SUV was on a fast collision course with Dunhill’s plane.

Kalani could hear nothing but the wail of the engine, though she assumed the latest stunt had pulled more cries from the crowd. She didn’t hear any gunshots, at least didn’t notice any hit the SUV.

Ethan yelled at her to draw her weapon and brace for impact. She followed his suggestion, seeing the side of the plane zooming toward them. She closed her eyes and made sure she’d stopped biting her tongue for the impact.

* * *

She unbuckled her seat belt and flew straight up into the air, slamming up against the ceiling, then sliding halfway down the side of the SUV.

Rather, she’d fallen down onto the roof. The SUV had been toppled over by the impact into Dunhill’s plane.

Ethan was talking to her, calmly, his legs stuck through the bottom of the seat in front of him.

“I can’t move out of this seat,” he said to her.

Finally she could hear the yelling back at the crowd. The van’s windows had shattered.

Where was her gun?

Ethan asked her the same question, but she couldn’t come up with an answer. It felt like she’d forgotten how to speak.

Kalani was slipping, both in her mind and her body, sliding down the side of the SUV and out through a missing front windshield. She landed on the hard tarmac in a pile of shattered glass, her palms stinging red. She swung around and looked back at the SUV, on an odd-tilted angle, upside down and sideways. Logan, the driver, lay still, his face bloody and not moving.

Ethan called to her again. “Ready?” he said.

His gun flew through the air, and she caught it in a mist of blood. Her hands were cut up and bloody, but the gun felt good. The gun felt familiar.

She had her training to fall back on.

She had motivation to energize her and lift her off the ground, rising from all fours to a hunched defense jog toward the side of the plane—or what was left of it, smashed along almost the whole side from the impact.

There was a loud slap of metal behind her, in the van. Another, thudding. Gunfire. Incoming.

Stuck in no-man’s land between the two vehicles, she had nowhere left to go but inside the plane. She was ready.

Kalani climbed over the landing gear, then dipped down into an opened escape hatch that had blown open at the back of the plane. There was smoke inside.

Gun smoke, too. She knew the distinction. She knew what was waiting for her.

The first thing Kalani saw was Tucker lodged between a row of collapsed seats, not bloody, but not conscious. The hood off, he looked peacefully asleep in the early morning light. The low sun had glowed through what was left of the windows, illuminating beams of dust and smoke through the fuselage.

The glint off Dunhill’s handgun caught her attention as he fired several shots through one of the porthole widows.

Kalani yelled his name. Then she yelled, “Drop it!”

He didn’t.

When Dunhill moved to swing his weapon away from the window and toward her, Kalani fired as many shots as it took to drop him flat and unmoving on the ground.

Where the hell was Lea?

She heard a chorus of “Hold your fire” being shouted from outside.

She herself shouted the same. She didn’t want any bullets coming in and hitting her or Tucker, or Lea—if she was still even inside the plane.

She heard it again outside: “Hold your fire.” And then, putting a lump in her throat, she heard, “Hands up and turn around!” Her heart began thumping even faster. Then she heard, “Now walk backward to the sound of my voice.”

Lea . . . it had to have been Lea. They had to be talking to Lea. She leaned over and caught a last glimpse of her sister walking down the tarmac, arms outstretched.

She scrambled her way out of the wreckage of Dunhill’s plane, but she found no sign of her sister. Ethan, however, was front and center. He’d crawled out from the SUV and straightened himself up, looking almost like nothing had happened. His legs weren’t crushed. His face, perfect. So damned perfect. Kalani ran into his arms and he held her solidly against him. For a brief moment, the world went away.

The tears she’d held back for hours spilled over, and she started crying in his embrace. Ethan let her cry, and then finally squeezed her arms gently. Kalani collected herself. The mission wasn’t over yet.

She turned away from him to scan what was left of the scene—mostly people in uniforms rushing around. Smoke still rising from Dunhill’s empty plane. Kalani looked up, right into Ethan’s gaze. “Where is she?”