“We have to get up there,” said Cowboy, flashing his identification to the policeman guarding the elevator that ran to the top of the Space Needle.

“HERO Force?” said the officer, handing back his ID. “Only official government agency responders can go upstairs.”

“Leo Wilson, U.S. Navy SEAL. This is Austin Dixon and Noah Ryker. They’re SEALs, too. We’ve been working undercover at The Community, a cult run by David Kelleher.”

The officer’s eyes widened. “The guy blowing up the bombs.”

“That’s right. We have reason to believe he’s on the observation deck with a hostage.”

“The observation deck was cleared more than an hour ago. The only people up there are law enforcement.”

Austin and Cowboy exchanged a glance. “Check,” said Austin.

The officer furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”

Cowboy shrugged. “You guys have security cameras up there, don’t you? Check the feed. If there is nothing abnormal, we’ll leave you alone with our apologies.”

The cop looked to another cop, who shrugged. “Why not?”

“All right, I’ll go check. You two stay here.” He pointed at the other policemen. “Don’t let them upstairs.”

He walked away and Cowboy moved closer to Austin, whispering, “What if everything up there is fine?”

“Then we go to plan B.”

“Which is what?”

“I don’t have a fucking clue.”

A ruckus erupted from the street, the noise reaching them through two banks of glass doors. Austin and Cowboy ran outside, one voice standing out against the others. “Someone’s hanging from the observation deck!” shouted a man.

Austen feared what he would find before he even raised his head. There, hanging some hundred feet in the air from the bottom of the space needle, was a woman in a white dress.

A woman who could only be Cassidy.

Horror like nothing he’d ever experienced pulled a cry of pure fear from his gut as the moment moved in slow motion. “No!”

Then he was racing back inside, Cowboy on his heels. The officer who’d gone to look at the surveillance footage waved them into the elevator, three officers already inside. “Everybody on the observation floor is down,” said the cop as the doors closed. “We don’t know if they are incapacitated or dead. The only person visible on the cameras is a man, forty to forty-five, small build, dark hair, climbing on the security cables.”

“David Kelleher,” said Austin. “There’s a woman hanging from the observation deck. Cassidy Lane. We have to get her down safely.” He pulled out his weapon as Cowboy and the officers did the same.

The car shot upward, the city of Seattle spread out before them through the glass walls.

“You know her?” asked the officer.

“Yes.” He loaded the gun. “I’m the one who left her in harm’s way.”

This time you have to save her.

A dark abyss of self-doubt had opened in his mind. What if he couldn’t get to her in time? What if the Space Needle was already wired to explode like the other attractions and Cassidy met her end along with it?

He had to keep it from happening.

The officer handed out gas masks. Moments ticked by like hours as they made their ascent, the doors finally opening onto a glass-walled round room with a walkway visible beyond it.

The observation deck. Somewhere out there was David Kelleher and—God willing—the tether that was keeping Cassidy from falling to the ground. Austin sprung forth, his gun at the ready as he made his way outside.

Cowboy went one way around the circle, Noah the other.

But the observation deck appeared to be empty. Austin ran three-quarters of the way around before finding Cowboy leaning out where Cassidy was suspended. The metal security ropes had been cut, allowing Kelleher to climb out of the observation deck and onto the steel that extended beyond it, the metal coming out like spokes that connected to a wider steel ring encompassing the tower.

There, around the outermost ring of the tower, was a metal cable wrapped around and hanging down. Austin looked down, just able to see Cassidy’s dress blowing in the breeze, his stomach turning as he grasped the depth of her plight.

“They have to have harnesses and safety cables here somewhere. Ask the cops. Go. Go!” he said to Cowboy, who hurried off.

Austin grabbed the broken cables and hauled himself up. He was so desperate to reach her a part of him longed to go out there now without a safety cable. A stupid move when Kelleher was around. As if on cue, a voice came from behind him.

“Welcome to the show.”

Austin whipped around to find Kelleher behind him, smiling widely. He wore a body harness but had no weapon, and Austin longed to shoot him dead.

Or kill him with my bare hands.

He did neither.

Kelleher looked at the gun. “You don’t want to do that. You see this?” In his hand he held what looked like a remote control device. “If I let go of this button, she’ll plummet to the ground like a stone.”

The officers who rode up with them in the elevator were visible in the glassed-in observation room behind Kelleher, carrying what must be harnesses and safety cables. Austin held up his hand to keep them there.

“Let her go, Kelleher.”

“God wants her to dance. Right now every TV camera in town is pointed at that woman held high above the ground, hoping with all their might she survives.” He pointed to the highest level of the Space Needle, a miniature observation deck just below the needle that looked like a maintenance area. “Today I will give my sermon on the mount, and all the eyes of the sinners in this city will see the error of their ways.”

“What about Cassidy?”

“She’ll die. That’s the only way this story can end. True repentance only comes when something important is taken away.”

“And the Space Needle?”

“It will explode with such force, the top will end up in Elliot Bay. Very dramatic for our friends in the media.”

“And you die a martyr’s death.”

David cocked his head. “I live another day to teach others about the dangers of sin and greed. I am doing the Lord’s work. He doesn’t want me to perish.”

“This God of yours sounds like a really nasty character.”

“Those who don’t believe are the worst sinners of all.”

“Oh, I believe in God,” said Austin. “I know he’s real. But he’s not the asshole you seem to think he is.”

Kelleher’s eyes darkened. “When the fires of hell lick at your feet, you will remember this moment.”

“Like you, when this building explodes?”

“I told you, I will not die.”

Austin narrowed his eyes. Half the world was downstairs, yet this man planned to escape? “Then how are you going to get out?”

“I’ll spread my wings like an angel and fly.”

Suddenly, a chorus of voices could be heard screaming from the street below, Cassidy’s distinctive and louder yelp reaching Austin’s ears. He responded viscerally, every hair on his body standing on end. “What did you do?” he growled as he looked over the edge. There was Cassidy, still hanging from the tower.

“Oops,” said David. “My finger slipped. Now stay here or I’ll really drop her next time.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Austin. “You afraid I’ll show the crowd the good in humanity by going out on a limb to save another?”

“She’s a whore and a temptress. She deserves to die for her sins.”

“She’s the woman I love.” The words came so easily to his lips, yet they sounded strange to his ears. He’d never claimed to love a woman in his whole damn life.

It’s true. I do love her.

And now he was in danger of losing her forever.

David scoffed.

Austin took a step toward him. “You wouldn’t know about love, would you? You’re damaged goods. Not right in the head. A psycho. What’s the matter, mom and dad didn’t love you enough?”

“Stop moving.”

“You been called that before, David? Maybe you don’t really talk to God. Maybe you just need a prescription.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s time for me to preach the truth to all the world. You tell those cops in there to let me through. Any funny business and the girl dies.”

Austin walked ahead of him into the building, telling everyone to steer clear—the three cops, Cowboy and Noah. Kelleher produced a key and unlocked a door labelled, “Authorized Personnel Only.”

“Remember,” he said to Austin. “Try to rescue the girl and she’ll be nothing but a splat on the sidewalk.”

The door closed behind him.

“I found a firehose,” said Noah. “Should be long enough to reach her.”

“I’ll climb out to the ring,” said Austin.

“Here’s your safety harness,” said an officer.

Austin frowned. “What does it attach to?”

“There’s an inner ring that goes around the whole structure. Made for safety lines for routine maintenance.”

“But if she’s hanging from the outside ring and I’m hanging from the inside, I won’t be able to reach her.”

The officer in charge spoke up. “He’ll be able to see you if you go out to the rings.”

Austin wanted to scream that he didn’t care what Kelleher did to him as long as Cassidy was safe, but of course, he couldn’t guarantee her safety if Kelleher saw him trying to save her. “What do you suggest?” asked Austin.

“The elevator shaft is directly beneath us. He won’t be able to see you there. You still won’t be that close to her, but you can push off from the structure and swing out to grab her. Plus he won’t be able to see you from the top of the needle.” The officer gestured to the doorway where Kelleher had just gone.

“Make it happen,” said Austin.

One of the other officers stepped forward, holding a smartphone. “He’s on the news. I don’t know how he’s broadcasting from here, but he’s on the news, right on top of the Needle.”

Austin took the phone, the others crowding around to see. Sure enough, there was Kelleher on what looked like a ten-foot deck atop the Space Needle.

“…Today you have seen a tiny fraction of God’s wrath. You must repent for your actions that offend him…”

“Show me how to get to the elevator shaft,” Austin said.

The officers led the way, Noah with the firehose in tow, Cowboy with the live news broadcast of David’s apocalyptic prophecies. With the help of a crowbar from the maintenance closet, they managed to pry open the doors to an empty elevator bay, a cold, wet breeze blowing up from the abyss.

“Cowboy, get a safety harness. You’re going to help me.”

The officers rigged Austin to a steel eyehole in a beam with a twenty-foot metal cable. “I’ll lower myself down, then Cowboy will follow.” He turned to Cowboy. “You hang on to me while they unhook my security rope, then we find a new anchor and continue on.”

Noah piped up. “The news is estimating she’s about a hundred and fifty feet down.”

“We have to hurry,” said Austin, lowering himself onto the elevator track and climbing a scaffold similar to a widely rung ladder. An old prayer came back to him.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

He didn’t know if God was telling him to be fearless or if he was about to die.

I guess it doesn’t matter.

Cowboy was right behind him, and they executed the first switch. Cassidy was below them, blowing from side to side in the harsh wind.

The men moved as quickly as they could, executing several switches without incident when suddenly Austin fell. A rung was slippery with thick grease, and he plummeted twenty feet before slamming to a stop and crashing into the steel structure. He was too high on adrenaline to feel any pain. “Grease,” he warned Cowboy, their shoes now slippery, making the descent more dangerous.

“Austin,” Cassidy called.

“I’m coming.” He couldn’t look at her, needing total focus on every movement he made. It wasn’t until the final switch that he dared lift his head, his heart in his throat. There with the city of Seattle and Elliott Bay in the background hung the woman he loved.

Their relationship flashed through his mind in its entirety. The amazing weeks they’d shared all those years ago and what a fool he’d been to let her go. The picture her mother had pushed across the HERO Force conference table like a punch to the gut. Making love to Cassidy here, there, and everywhere, the way his soul felt melting with hers.

And now he could lose her.

He saw how precarious her grip was on the steel rope. She had no harness like he did—she simply had a loop around her torso like a lasso on a colt.

It must hurt like hell.

He imagined the cable digging into her skin and forced the image from his mind. He couldn’t function if he thought of her like that. Couldn’t stand it.

He unhooked his carabiner and braced himself on Cowboy, just as a tremendous wind caught his body and pushed him away from the steel. Cowboy grunted with the effort it took, but he held on, slowly pulling Austin back around, his feet gaining purchase.

Austin finally hooked onto the last eye in the steel he would need to descend. “Send down the hose!” he yelled as loudly as he could.

Cassidy’s voice was weak and trembling. “I don’t know much longer I can hang on. I love you…”

“Don’t give up. Do you hear me?” he yelled. “You hang on and you don’t give up.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try. Do it.”

She nodded.

The hose made it down to Cowboy and he wrapped it around and through Austin’s harness, securing it with a thick knot. “The metal fitting will help hold it in place.”

Austin took two more steps down before the hose tightened enough to support his weight. His stomach flip-flopped at the thought of what he had to do next. He pushed off the Space Needle and lunged for Cassidy, grabbing her by the waist.

The crowd down below went crazy, but she was still attached to the cable line and it snagged her backward, out of his grip. She nearly fell.

“Again,” Austin called. “This time I’ll grab you lower. Lift your arms and let the cable slide over your head.”

Her face crumpled. “I’m scared.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Cassidy. I love you.”

She nodded her head. “Ready.”

He pushed off the tower again, grabbing her lower torso. She lifted her arms and the cable flew free.

“Hang on tight! We’re going to hit the tower.” He turned his body so he took the direct hit. Cowboy steadied them. The sound of a metal whip cut through the air as the cable she’d been hanging from dropped to the ground.

Cowboy lifted his head to the officers above. “Lower it down,” he called. The firehose moved slowly and Cassidy buried her head in the crook of his neck.

“You’re okay now,” Austin cooed. His eyes met Cowboy’s over Cassidy’s shoulder. They weren’t out of the woods just yet, and they both knew it.

Their feet hit the ground and reporters swarmed them. “Out of the way,” Austin belted and the sea of people parted before him. He made his way back into the building with Cassidy right behind him.

The officer in charge met Austin’s stare.

Something was terribly wrong. “What is it?”

“He got away.”

“How the fuck?”

“Hang glider off the top of the needle. Must have been one of those folding models.”

Fly like an angel.

Austin smacked his hand on the wall. “Son of a bitch.”

“You need to leave the building,” said the officer. “Bomb squad thinks they got all the explosives, but we need to clear the building just in case.”

The group walked outside, again avoiding the press. When they made their way out of the crowd, Austin saw Noah walking toward them in the distance, his sniper rifle case hung over his shoulder.

“He fucking got away,” said Austin.

Noah frowned. “You don’t say?”

“Why you got your rifle?”

“Huntin’ ducks.”

Austin looked to Cassidy, who seemed as perplexed as he.

“Got me a big yellow one, flew right off the top of the Space Needle,” said Noah. He grinned widely.

“You got him?” asked Austin.

Noah nodded. “Seattle’s finest had the firehose secure without me. I came down here and got my rifle. The coast guard can fish him out of the Elliott Bay any time now.”