“Anything I want?” Cari echoed. She wanted to make sure she’d heard him correctly before she made her request.

“Well, within reason,” he amended. “It’s not like we can walk out of here tonight, for example. The hornet’s nest is too stirred up for that.”

“That’s not what I want, anyway.”

“What do you want, princess?” He sounded wary now, as if it was dawning on him exactly what giving her a carte blanche could mean.

“Tell me your real name,” she said.

“It’s Joe.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously,” he repeated. “My real name is Joe.”

“Joe what?”

“Ah, Cari. Let’s not go there.”

“Why not?”

“Some things are best left alone. If you knew my last name, you could research all kinds of unpleasant things about me and my past. And trust me, you don’t want to know the details.”

“Are you a criminal?” she asked.

He answered reluctantly. “I suppose in some people’s minds I am. I’d like to think there’s always a good reason for anything I do. I certainly don’t think of myself as a criminal.”

That was an interesting answer. Open to several possible interpretations. She cut to the chase. “Are you a member of the Blackjacks?”

He leaned back far enough to look down at her.

Stalling, was he?

“If I were a member of that bunch, I would have to say no, and if I weren’t a member, I’d say no, too. So my answer to that one is…no.”

That had to be the most unconvincing denial she’d ever heard. Maybe it was as close to an honest answer as he was allowed to give her, though.

“Where did you learn how to do spooky stuff?”

“Spooky stuff?”

Stalling again. She clarified. “Finding weaknesses in security systems, climbing off balconies, and lurking in the bushes.”

He chuckled. “You make me sound like the perfect paparazzo.”

She smiled against his neck. “Believe me, I know paparazzi, and you’re not nearly aggressive enough to be one of them.”

“Wow,” he responded. “That bad?”

“If you want to see firsthand, go out in public with me. By now, the rumors of our secret wedding have to be flying like crazy.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea. I wonder if daddy dearest would go for it.”

“After tonight’s little expedition, probably not. He’ll want to yank the leash hard for a couple of days. Make us remember who’s in charge.”

Joe shrugged beneath her ear. “If you pull the leash too short, the dog can bite you.”

She raised herself up on one elbow in alarm. “Don’t do anything stupid, Joe. You’ve gotten away with the surfer bum act so far, but he’s got plenty of bite of his own.”

Joe reached up and urged her head back down onto his shoulder. She subsided, but reluctantly. She had to convince him not to push her father too far.

And then it hit her. He’d done it again! He’d adroitly turned the conversation away from whether or not he was involved with the Blackjacks. Damn, he was good. She could reopen the subject and push the matter, but he would just distract her again.

He’d probably given her all the answers he was going to, anyway. Ultimately, that was more revealing than hearing him actually admit to being in the Blackjacks.

She lay there thoughtfully and started when Joe’s hand closed over hers. She hadn’t been paying attention, but she’d been stroking his chest beneath his T-shirt and twining her fingers in the sprinkling of chest hairs there.

Sudden vibrating tension raced up her arm and down to her core. Without a word and hardly a movement, he’d totally changed the tenor of the moment. It was as if he had flipped on a sex-appeal switch and, all of a sudden, steaming sensuality rolled off of him. Not that she was complaining about it, of course. As distractions went, it was pretty bloody effective.

An answering surge of need welled up inside her, rising to meet him halfway.

“God Almighty, woman,” he muttered as he half rolled to face her. “What am I going to do with you?”

He felt it, too, huh? “Do you want me to actually answer that question?” she replied laughingly.

He laughed ruefully. “No, I don’t. I’ve got too many ideas of my own already.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

His free arm went around her and he gathered her close. “Nothing I’m going to act on right now. You’ve had a rough night and I’m not going to pile more emotional baggage on top of everything else.”

Her right hand crept around his waist. This guy didn’t carry an ounce of fat on him. He was solid muscle. “Look. That Slav was a bigger asshole than most of them, but it’s not like stuff like that hasn’t happened to me before. And I’m okay.”

“Are you?” he whispered. “Are you really?”

The pain in his voice arrested her. He was genuinely upset by the incident.

“Yes, Joe, I really am.” She leaned back and wormed her arms free so she could reach up and put her hands on either side of his face. “I’ve survived worse.”

“Christ. Don’t tell me that. I’m going to have to kill every bastard who’s ever laid a hand on you.”

“My own knight in shining armor,” she murmured. “You can’t slay all the dragons by yourself, you know.”

“No, but I can kill the biggest, baddest one of the bunch,” he growled. “You just say the word.”

She froze. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d just offered to kill her father for her. The thought sent a cold chill down her spine. Her father was just doing business, using all available tools at hand to get the job done. It was nothing personal.

“Joe, my father has always used my looks to distract men in meetings. It’s no big deal.”

“Honey, I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. It is a big deal. That Slavic guy was all over you. And your father let it happen, even implied it could go further. No parent who loves his child would use her in that way. It’s…sick--”

Joe broke off sharply as if his anger was about to get the best of him. He took a couple of long, deep breaths, exhaling hard.

“It’s okay, Joe. Really.”

“No, it’s not okay!” He exploded, sitting up abruptly and yanking his arm out from beneath her.

“Shh,” she cautioned him in alarm, sitting up as well.

“I’m serious,” he continued in a lower voice. “At a minimum, it should infuriate you.”

Should it? She looked inside herself. Was there a kernel of anger inside her somewhere that she’d missed or ignored? Anger wasn’t the word for it. Hurt was a better description. She wanted to please her father, to do what made him happy. She wanted his approval. If letting his business associates paw her a little made her father proud, then she would put up with it. Except, tonight her father had gone further than before.

Surely, he hadn’t really meant what he’d suggested. He would have made sure the Slav kept away from her once the meeting was over. Of course, he would have. She frowned. Viewed through Joe’s eyes, it did seem like she was letting her father prostitute her in a calculated and debasing way. Maybe she should be angry.

“Maybe I’m not strong enough to get mad over it,” she said carefully.

“Bull,” he snorted. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.” He shoved a hand through his dark hair. “The bastard is using you. He’s treating you with no more respect than a cheap hooker. Jesus—” Joe broke off and took a deep breath “—Cari, that’s not love. It’s—”

Anger flared in her. “It’s what, Joe? Go ahead and say it. What does that make me?”

It was his turn to look at the walls in alarm and shush her.

“Don’t go telling me to be quiet. You’re the one who brought this up. You can damned well finish this conversation.”

His eyes closed in acute pain. When he finally opened them, sorrow shone in their dark depths. He spoke gently. “I’m sorry, Cari. I was wrong to open this can of worms. It’s your life and I have no right to intrude or judge. I just hate to see you get hurt.”

That did it. The dam broke and the tears came. Thank God the room was dark because she had never learned how to cry prettily. Her eyes turned red and swelled and her nose ran, and she snot-cried ungracefully while ugly sobs racked her. She didn’t even make decent crying noises. She sounded like a bull moose with a cold.

She wanted Joe to claim the right to intrude! Why did he refuse to see that? It all closed in on her—the hurt, the fear and the shame—and she sobbed all the more.

But through it all, Joe held her, offering her tissues and pushing her hair off her face and wiping away the tears.

“Better?” he finally murmured.

“God, I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I’m not even sure what I was crying about.”

“Why don’t you just chalk it up to stress relief,” he suggested.

A comforting thought, but there was more to it than that. Much more. Tonight, Joe had torn away the blinders she wore to get through her life with a measure of sanity. She didn’t want to see her world as it really was! Didn’t Joe understand that? She had to let a layer of fog obscure the sharp corners and harsh realities of it all. The illusions were all she had.

“Come here, Cari,” Joe murmured.

She rolled into his arms and clung to him tightly. She ought to be embarrassed by her complete breakdown, but Joe seemed to have taken it in stride.

“I’ll make it better, I swear,” he muttered into her hair.

Was he saying that to her or to himself? She couldn’t exactly tell.

“You already have,” she mumbled against his chest.

“How’s that?”

“Just by being here. By caring enough to make me face something ugly about my life.”

“There’s nothing ugly about you or your life, Cari,” he said slowly. “Your father has brainwashed you into believing his bull. But now you’re growing up. You can look at what he says and does and see it more clearly.”

“You make me sound like some kid.”

“You are a kid,” he replied.

“I’m twenty-four. That’s not so young. And you have to admit that growing up in this house has exposed me to stuff most twenty-four-year-olds never have to deal with.”

He drew her even closer in a protective gesture. “In some ways, you’re more worldly than most fifty-year-olds. But your life has isolated you from certain lessons, as well. I don’t mean to insult you. You’re incredibly bright and wise for your age. But there’s no way around the fact that twenty-four is damned young.”

Too young for him? Was that what he was saying with such regret in his voice?

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty-three.”

“Wow. You’re just about ready for the old-folks’folk’s home. Do you need help taking your teeth out and brushing them or can you still manage that by yourself?”

“Hey!” he laughed. “I still get around. It’s just that—”

“I’m too young for you?” she suggested with a certain edge in her voice.

“Well, nine years is a big age difference.”

“Thirty years is a big age difference,” she retorted. “Nine isn’t that huge a chasm. Besides, when has love ever stopped to look at birth certificates? It happens where it wills. If two people are meant to be together, age is meaningless.”

“Aha, the truth comes out. She’s a closet romantic!”

He was not wrong. But still, she was surprised that such a closely heal secret about herself should be so obvious to him. Silence fell between them.

“Joe?”

“Hmm?”

“There’s something else I want tonight.”

Instant caution zinged through his voice. “What’s that?”

“Make love to me.”

He jolted beneath her.

She raised herself up on one elbow and stared down at him in the dark. “You know, by refusing to make love to me, you might just give me more of that emotional baggage you mentioned earlier. It would probably be best just to give in to what’s between us.”

He frowned at her. “There’s something between us?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not much experience with women, Joseph?”

He scowled and she laughed at him. And then she leaned down and kissed him. That was more like it. The wildness she’d been feeling ever since she first met this man surged to the fore once more. Her hands skimmed across Joe’s shoulders, his neck and his face as her tongue swept into his mouth, inviting him in no uncertain terms to come play with her.

His arms came up around her as if to stop her from rubbing herself against him, but she groaned deep in her throat and Joe froze. The nature of the embrace changed. Answering hunger rattled in the back of his throat.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he gasped, tearing his mouth away from hers.

Gee, wasn’t that supposed to be the girl’s line? She tried to remember what the guys said to get past that particular protest but drew a blank. So she kissed him some more. No way would she ever get enough of this man. If she could figure out a way to inhale him, she would.

She crawled on top of him, reveling in his powerful body, rejoicing in the feeling of her breasts smashed against his hard chest. His hands roamed all over her back, up her ribs and brushed the sides of her breasts. Liquid heat sprang between her legs and she buried her face against the corded column of his neck.

“I can’t believe what you do to me,” she laughed. “You’re killing me.”

He reared up at that one, rolling her off him abruptly. But blessedly, he followed after her body with his, never breaking contact between them. His weight pressed her down into the mattress.

Desperate to have him fill her, one of her legs crept up, wrapping around his thighs in naked invitation.

“You’re the one who’s killing me, here,” he muttered.

“Then make love to me and we’ll die together,” she breathed up at him, her throat too tight to make any more noise than that.

He grinned. “Hey, that’s my line.”

“Well, you seemed to need a little help remembering what comes next.”

His eyebrows shot straight up.

She continued blithely, “I mean, seeing as you’ve had so little experience with women and all, I thought maybe I’d better help you along.”

“I don’t need any help, thank you,” he growled.

She studied him in mock seriousness. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Do you need me to tell you where everything goes?”

He laughed aloud at that. “Let’s see if I can figure it out for myself, shall we?”

She speared her hands deep into his hair and tugged his head down close to hers. “I’m all yours,” she whispered.

He sank into her by slow degrees, his mouth soft against hers, kissing her sweetly at first. His hands traced lightly over her skin, awakening her body, nerve by nerve. He kissed her deeply, but he was still holding back. A lot.

He was going to drive her crazy to get even with her for starting this thing! But what a way to go. She closed her eyes and savored the tingling progress of his fingertips. And when he’d finished with his hands, he began with his mouth.

She had to give him credit for being thorough—he didn’t miss one inch of her body. He licked and nipped and sucked his way from paradise to hell and back, driving her steadily out of her mind with need.

And when he pushed her knees apart and sampled the sweetest fruits of her desire, she was sure she’d died. She trembled around the electrical currents building higher and higher within her, robbing her of breath. She raised her head off the pillows, her entire body taut as his tongue circled and teased her to the very edge of release.

And then he rose up over her, as dark and mysterious as the night around them, and plunged into the molten depths of her until she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. She let out a cry as she exploded, and a great black void of nothing but incredible sensation burst over her, showering her in tingling pulsations that nearly tore her apart.

She stared at him in disbelief. Oh, she’d enjoyed sex before, but nothing like that had ever happened to her!

A slow smile broke across his face. “Do I have everything in the right place?”

She nodded, too out of breath to speak.

“Let’s see what happens when I do this.” And then he began to move again, a slow, gentle rocking of his hips that built and built until it became a hot, hard, driving thrust of flesh on slick flesh.

The tension began to build again, stretching her out tighter and tighter until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She surged up beneath him, straining toward release. She heard her own voice, husky with need, begging him for more.

And then a glittering explosion of pleasure filled the black void once more, rushing out to the very ends of her fingertips. In that endless moment, Joe buried his face against her neck and cried out against her skin, shuddering powerfully against her.

It was perfect.

She fell back against the mattress, panting. Oh. My. God.

How long they lay there, their limbs twisted together and their hearts pounding as one, she had no idea. But, eventually, she managed to mumble, “You’ve ruined me.”

Joe’s head jerked up off the pillow above her shoulder and he stared down at her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No! But after that, I won’t be able to make love to anyone else for as long as I live.”

He frowned, looking alarmed.

She clarified. “Nobody else could ever top that. If you ever leave me, I’ll just have to swear off sex altogether. Because nothing less than that would ever do again.”

He rolled over, finally disengaging their bodies from one another. She missed the feeling of him deep inside her already.

“You may have spoiled me for any other woman, too,” he muttered, so quietly she wasn’t sure she was supposed to have heard it.

“Good thing we’re already married,” she said lightly.

Joe tensed beside her. Cursed.

She propped herself up in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“I just may have negated our ability to get an annulment. I’m sorry, Cari. This means we might have to get a divorce when you finally get out of here and get sick of me.”

She blinked a couple of times. Did he know what he’d just said? He’d just acknowledged that this was a real marriage. Furthermore, he’d said, “when you get sick of me.” Not the other way around. Was he starting to harbor thoughts of a long-term relationship with her? Could it be?

Aloud, she said fervently, “Remind me to thank Julia the next time I see her for sending you to me.”

Joe grinned. “I will. And remind me to thank her for sending me, too.”

A moment of silence fell. It lay there comfortably between them. A good thing, given what they’d just shared together. She figured sex would either draw them closer together or send him running for the hills. Thank God it appeared to be the former.

“Get some sleep,” he murmured. “You’ve had a big day.”

“What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” she mumbled. “Can we do more of this, please?”

Joe’s finger traced her lips lazily. “That sounds like a plan.” But then he sighed. “I’d love to stay here and find out what Eduardo plans to do with the information he’s buying, but after what we just—” he broke off. “Let’s just say, it’s more important than ever to get you out of here.”

“How are you going to do that?” she asked.

“Good question. I still have to figure out some of the features of the house’s security system.”

In other words, butt out. It was too late to press the issue, but tomorrow she would demand to know the details of his escape plan. She could help with it. But speaking of late, she was getting sleepy.

She sighed, “The only person in the house who knows more about the security system than I do is Gunter. He used to show me all the controls and how they worked. It’s how I got interested in electrical engineering. Tomorrow, you can ask me anything you want to know.”

“Answer me one thing, and then I really am going to let you go to sleep. Is there a basement in this place?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she replied, already slipping into dreamland.

Joe went stiff beneath her. His mind raced, finally emerging from the spell of their lovemaking, as Cari drifted off to sleep on his shoulder. God, she felt good, curled up against him like that.

She continued to amaze him with her resilience. She’d made good progress tonight toward breaking her dependence on her old man. It had to be hard to let go of the only parent she’d ever had, no matter how rotten he might be.

Not that he was any better than her old man right now. He shouldn’t have made love with her no matter how hard she came on to him. She was a living, breathing woman with real feelings and real pain, and he was playing them all like a violin to his own advantage. Hell, maybe he was worse than Eduardo.

The hell of it was, he really did care for Cari. Even if they hadn’t just shared the most mind-blowing sex of his adult life, he would still be concerned about the way her father was terrorizing her. He would still worry that she had no idea what love was or how it appropriately ought to be expressed.

Well, crap.

He was falling for this woman—hard—despite his best efforts not to. Every time he turned around, she showed him some new facet of her personality. Yeah, sure, she had some problems. She was clueless about how to stand up for herself and, although she knew sisterly love, she clearly didn’t understand parental love. Plus, the whole idea of mutual respect between a man and a woman seemed to have escaped her experience. He didn’t even want to think about the men she’d dated in the past.

It didn’t matter what wrong lessons in love they’d taught her, dammit. It wasn’t his job to fix her misconceptions.

Yeah, but if she offered him the job, he would be hard-pressed to turn it down.

He had it bad for her, all right.

The list of reasons not to allow a repeat of tonight went on for miles. Topping the list was the fact that it went against all standards of proper military behavior. More importantly, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt Cari. And, surely he would if he let her fall in love with him.

One day soon, this mission would end and she would have to walk away from her past. He had no illusions that she would never want a thing to do with anything or anyone that reminded her of her father. That would include him, too.

And it wasn’t as if the next op wouldn’t beckon and send him out the door, to God knew where for God knew how long with no guarantee of returning alive. He couldn’t ask her to wait for him through the uncertainties of his existence. Her life was already too unstable. She needed someone she could depend on. Someone who would be there for 24/7/365.

Hell, he would drive himself crazy with jealousy if he left a girl as beautiful as Cari behind every time he went on the road. He’d seen so many long-distance relationships crumble between soldiers and the girls back home that he couldn’t count them all. It took a special woman to wait alone on the home front and remain loyal through all the long absences his line of work dished out.

A little voice at the back of his brain nagged at him. How could he be so sure Cari wasn’t that special a woman? She’d shown him a hell of a lot of character already. The kind of fortitude a guy could believe in and trust for the times apart.

Maybe making their marriage the real deal wasn’t so farfetched an idea, after all….

Cari shifted against him, mumbling in her sleep and draping her leg across his thigh. Her arm settled across his chest. Inexplicable panic speared through him.

Trapped. He was trapped.

He had to get out of here.

And where was “here,” exactly? Was he freaking out about getting away from the irresistible lure of Cari, or was his sudden and overwhelming claustrophobia a result of being trapped in his enemy’s home? It didn’t matter. Either way, he couldn’t lie here one more second.

He eased out from under Cari and breathed a sigh of relief as she slept on. Silently, he changed into the black pants and turtleneck he’d worn earlier. Time to go have a look at the basement.

He cracked open the hallway door. Thank God. No guard standing outside it tonight. Everyone must have figured that he and Cari would have the good sense to stay in for the rest of the night after their disastrous excursion earlier.

He moved quickly down the hallway. In his exploration of the house so far, he’d determined that there weren’t many security cameras in the public areas of the interior. He had found them only around doorways leading in and out of the house. He guessed that the majority of the cameras were reserved for the guest bedrooms and Cari’s room, of course. It was the great weakness of the home. The place was wired to keep intruders out but not to keep intruders in.

He paused, crouching, at the end of the hall, watching the foyer. Guards roamed the house and grounds all night long, but he had no idea what their routine was. He was working blind here. And that meant he going slow and being extra careful.

A guard passed through the entry hall downstairs. The guy was walking slowly, looking around, bored. Joe gave him a few minutes to move on and then raced on ballet-dancer-light feet down the sweeping staircase.

His best guess was that the basement entry would be near the kitchen. From the blueprints he’d seen of this compound in his pre-mission briefing, he recalled a couple of pantries and a small office opened off the kitchen. The Blackjacks had always assumed the office was where Eduardo’s security men were based. But now that he was inside the mansion and saw the true extent of the operation here, that office wasn’t nearly big enough to house all the electronics, let alone the other monitors and gadgets that had to go with this fortress’s security system.

If he got caught by the kitchen, he could always claim to be on a refrigerator raid. In fact, he probably ought to grab a snack to act as his cover. He glided across the expanse of the commercial kitchen and opened the big stainless-steel refrigerator. He spied a plate of individually wrapped sub sandwiches. Perfect. He grabbed one.

Now, to find that basement. He headed for the office next to the kitchen and stopped in front of the closed door. A faint light seeped underneath it. No noise. Impossible to tell if there was someone on the other side of that door or not. His best bet was probably just to open it right up and act like he was snooping if there was someone there.

He unwrapped one end of his sandwich and, armed only with the hoagie, threw open the door.

Nada.

There was a small desk with a newspaper spread out across it. A monitor was perched on one side of the desk. Right now, it showed a view of the dark swimming pool. This must be where the roving guard parked between circuits of the estate. And beyond the desk...

…an open door with a downward staircase. Footsteps slapped on the kitchen floor behind him. The guard returning to his post! Joe bolted for the stairwell.

Whoever had just entered the little office didn’t poke his head down the stairs. Damn, that had been a close one!

He turned his attention to the other end of the stairwell and eased the rest of the way down the flight of steps. He plastered himself against the wall and stuck one eye out just far enough to peer at what lay beyond.

A long hallway. With doors opening off each side. The floor and walls were unfinished concrete with heavy, black cable running overhead. Those electrical wires were good candidates for cutting if he ever needed to throw the house into chaos. He would bet a good chunk of the house’s power—and probably the security system’s power—was routed through those lines.

The far end of the hall ended in what looked like a commercial freezer. The big, horizontal stainless steel bar handle and insulated metal door screamed meat locker. The estate was well outside of town, a long way from the nearest market. They must keep a pretty hefty supply of food on hand, given the number of mouths that had to be fed each day.

Joe eased down the hall. The first door on his right was cracked open just enough for him to glimpse a wall of television monitors and the back of a man’s head seated before them. The main nerve center of the security operation. Roger, ops, we have primary target acquisition.

This was just the Achilles’ heel he’d been looking for. Knock out that room full of monitors and he and Cari could stroll right out of the estate while everyone ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.

The guy at the video console started to turn and Joe ducked past the doorway quickly. He stopped at the next door, which was closed. He tested the knob. Locked. No time to pick it just now.

A third door revealed a large storage area lined with shelves and crammed with the usual junk houses accumulated in their basements—Christmas decorations, extra chairs, assorted sports equipment, old lamps, trunks, and lots of dust. In the back, he found a large heating-and-cooling unit and a half-dozen water heaters. No surprise, a large electrical generator sat there, too. It was silent now. Must be the backup system for power outages.

He checked the hallway before heading out again. The coast was clear. He opened the fourth door and stepped into—

Holy crap! A torture chamber. It couldn’t be anything else. The walls and ceiling of the room were completely upholstered in thick, padded blankets, the same kind used in food-processing plants to wrap around frozen food while it was shipped. A plain wooden table and a couple of wooden chairs were the only furniture. The lights were naked bulbs behind wire-mesh cages. There was a small drain grate set into the floor in one corner of the room. Probably served as both prisoner toilet and drain when it was time to hose away the blood. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he noticed big, dark blotches on the walls. He would bet his next paycheck those were bloodstains.

God, what a gruesome place. He would sure as hell hate to end up in here as a client on the receiving end of the twisted services offered within these walls.

The only door left down here was to the freezer. What the hell. He might as well have a look in it, too. He peeked out into the hallway in time to see a figure disappearing into the security office. He waited a few minutes and, when no one emerged again, sprinted down the hall to the freezer. He eased open the latch and pulled the heavy door open far enough to slip inside. A blast of arctic air slammed into him.

Before he pulled the door shut behind himself, he checked to make sure there was a latch on the inside, too. Yup. He closed himself in, pulled out his pocket flashlight and shined it around the space, which was larger than he expected.

He spied a light switch beside the door and flipped it on. The room was maybe twenty feet across and at least that deep. Damn. Eduardo could feed a small army out of this place. Maybe the guy was afraid of a siege or something.

Joe moved between the rows of tall shelves, stacked high with all kinds of food. In the back of the freezer, there was a large open area, maybe eight feet deep and running the width of the freezer. A long, coffin-shaped box sat on the floor in one corner. Surely, Eduardo didn’t store dead bodies down here. Not when he could dispose of them so easily by tossing them out into the ocean for the plentiful sharks to consume. Joe tried the lid on the box, but it was padlocked shut at both ends. Weird.

Most of the rest of the space was lined with boxes that, as soon as he got close to them, were self-explanatory. They were explosives and ammunition. Crate after crate of the stuff.

It wasn’t necessary to store explosives in a cold environment in this day and age. Not since the days of nitroglycerin bouncing around in stagecoaches had explosives been that unstable. Perhaps the thick cement walls and steel-reinforced ceiling of the freezer were the real reason this stuff was stacked in here. A meat locker did make an excellent ammo dump, now that he thought about it.

He took a last look at the coffin-shaped box. He grabbed a corner of it and tried to lift it. Very heavy. Maybe there were weapons in there.

The seeds of an escape plan were beginning to take shape in his mind. He would pry open the box, grab a weapon if there were was one inside, maybe snag a little C-4. He could set up a timed cutting charge to blow those wires in the ceiling…. It could definitely work….

He left the freezer and headed back to the big storage room. He raided the toolbox he’d spotted in there, pulling out pliers, wire and wire cutters. He snagged an old windup alarm clock off one of the shelves, too, and went to work. He wired the clock to the ignition controls of the backup generator. It took several minutes, and he was careful to get it right. His life and Cari’s might depend on this rig working.

Then grabbed a crowbar and headed back to the meat locker. Quickly, he stashed the tools behind the crates of ammunition. Now, all he had to do was pray he and Cari got a chance to use this stuff sometime soon.

In the meantime, he’d better head back to bed. It would start getting light before long and, with sunrise, the guards would perk up and be more alert.

Quickly and carefully, he retraced his steps down the hall and to the stairs. He made his way up them on his belly and stopped just shy of the little office at the top. Damn. The guard was sitting there, eating.

Joe lay there for ten interminable minutes. He was starting to contemplate jumping the guard from behind and knocking him out in order to get past him when finally, thankfully, the guy stood up. Joe’s heart about stopped as the guy turned toward the stairs. But all he did was pitch a balled-up sandwich wrapper in the trashcan. He turned away, gave his ass a scratch and left.

Thank God.

All Joe had to do was make it to the kitchen. From there, he could stroll upstairs with his hoagie in hand, without the slightest need for secrecy. He darted into the kitchen. Safe.

He unwrapped the sandwich, took a big bite and headed for bed. Tomorrow night, he and Cari would blow this Popsicle stand once and for all and get on with their lives.

A little voice whispered in the back of his head, our lives together.