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I sketch out my breach plan in fifty-five seconds. Nuñez listens carefully, her eyes following as I point to each section. “How long will it take everyone to get into position?”
There’s no room for misunderstanding, or guesswork, or a second’s slip. Not if this is going to work.
She calculates the distance between the tail and the nose of the plane and what I’m asking of her and her people. “Nineteen minutes.”
“Synchronize your watch with mine.” We wait for the thirty-second mark and synchronize. Sheridan does, too. “Time begins as soon as I enter the cargo hold. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sheridan, come with me.”
He follows me to the passenger side of our battered, weary SUV, waiting as I dump my radio, baton, flashlight, and spare magazines in the front seat. Behind us, Nuñez is quietly issuing orders and moving her people to the rear of our blockade. They’ll gear up behind the fire trucks out of sight of the cockpit.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Sheridan says when we’re alone. The SUV is blocking most of the wind, and it’s unnaturally still, like the world has paused for the two of us.
“You can’t follow me in there.” Two minutes, forty-five seconds have passed.
“You’re not going in alone.” He’s so close I can feel the heat from his body.
“Don’t, Sheridan. That’s an order.”
His jaw clenches. “I have never left your side. I’m not going to now.”
Three minutes.
My eyes find Sheridan’s. He stares back and lets me see all the way into the deepest parts of him, where his agony and his love coexist. “Reese—”
I shove him in the center of his chest. Pin him to the open door of our SUV. He grunts—
And I kiss him. My lips move gently over his.
He stills, goes rigid—
My handcuffs close around his wrist for the second time today, and before he can move, I’ve locked the other cuff to the inside handle of the passenger door.
Sheridan’s jaw goes slack. All the color drains from his face.
“You can’t be at my side this time,” I breathe.
“Reese, don’t do this,” he begs. “Please.” I can see the panic building in his eyes.
“You’ve given everything to me, and the Service, and look how you’ve been repaid.” My hand is on his cheek. My thumb brushes his stubble, the line of his jaw.
He turns into my touch. “I don’t care. I don’t.”
“I don’t know how this is going to go down. When it’s over, I need you to survive. Maybe Brennan and I won’t, but I need you to be okay.”
“How can I be, if you do this?”
Desperation pours off him as I back away. He jerks on the cuffs. Kicks the door. Strains to pull himself free.
Three minutes, forty-five seconds. I raise my hands over my head and step out from behind the line of black SUVs.
The three hundred feet between me and the plane take an eternity to traverse. Everything falls away, save for the sound of my shoes striking the pavement. The stench of burned rubber, of superheated metal. Spilled diesel fuel. Shredded grass and torn-up dirt.
Ahead of me is the aft cargo door. It’s opening into a black void. Snipers are watching me, and they’ll be scanning the interior with their scopes. Henry knows that. No one will be able to see anything inside this plane.
I don’t know what I’m going to find. I don’t know what the next minute will bring.
