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“He’s so fucking gone for you he can’t see anything, either.” Henry’s expression is ugly, hateful. “What is with you? Why did both of them go crazy over you?”
Like the two best men I know thinking I’m worth making space for in their hearts isn’t the biggest honor of my life.
“What about Clint? How does he fit into the picture?”
“Clint was waiting to be told all his conspiracy theories were true. Who better to red pill him than me? Someone on the inside who could see it all. Clint was primed and ready to believe Walker was the traitor he was hunting, that he was the one selling America to Russia. It was too easy to lead him where I needed him to go.”
Silence. Metal cools and ticks, heat escaping from atoms.
“What happens now, Henry?”
“You’re going to get us a new plane.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Because if you don’t, I’m going to execute him—” He kicks Brennan in his ribs, hard. “—in front of you, and you will spend the rest of your days knowing that you are the reason Brennan Walker, the love of your life, is dead.”
“No,” I whisper. “No, merci. Please.”
I have to sell this. I have to sell this to the man I thought was my best friend.
“And after you get us the plane, you’re going to get us a guarantee of safe passage out of American airspace and an escort all the way to Moscow.”
“I’ll do whatever you want.” My voice shakes. My teeth clench. “As long as you don’t hurt him.”
Henry grins at Quinten. “What did I tell you?” To me, he says, “You’re so fucking predictable, Reese.”
Nineteen minutes are up.
A pane of glass splinters, quieter than a gasp. I hear a thud, like a book dropping on carpet, somewhere forward, near the cockpit. Then another.
Right on time.
Nuñez has led her team on a two-pronged strike. The first team ran under the belly of the plane as the second silently roped up the horizontal stabilizers and belly-slid down the top of the fuselage. They met at the cockpit, the rooftop team ready to rappel in as soon as the ground team fired a suppressed shot through the first officer’s window and took out the spotter Henry left crouched in the darkness.
And as soon as they gain control of the cockpit—
“Fuck,” Henry snarls.
The cockpit door explodes into the passenger cabin above, blasting off its hinges. The whole plane shakes, then leans onto her broken wing.
Shouts, curses in Russian. Footsteps, boots pounding, voices bellowing. Bodies fall, and screams choke off in wet gurgles as Nuñez’s and her team open fire.
Their bullets drop the Russians one by one, and her team glides through the plane like wraiths, taking over positions where the Russians were only moments ago.
Everything happens in the space between heartbeats.
Henry puts a bullet in the center of Quinten’s neck, dropping him. Brennan shouts, his muffled voice bellowing my name. Henry grabs him around the throat and hauls him up as a human shield. He backs away from me and the firing angles of Nuñez’s team.
“Henry!” I shout.
He vanishes into the gloom of the lower cargo hold, and I follow him into the belly of the plane.
The fading light catches on Brennan’s eyes. He has the same look he had the moment we met. The same one he had when we danced on the Truman Balcony and when he kissed me in Manhattan. The same look he had when he told me he loved me. It’s always been the same, every single time. He’s always loved me, from that first moment.
The open cargo door is a blinding rectangle behind me. I’m in the worst possible position, perfectly silhouetted. Henry can put a bullet through my heart without even trying.
He’s in the shadows. “It’s just you and me now, Reese,” he says. “And you know I’m not going to die alone.”
