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  Blue nodded and vanished in the direction of the door and the outside pay phone.

  Please, God, keep Veronica safe, Joe prayed. Please, God, let him be really, really wrong about the situation. Please God…

  Forrest put his hand over the receiver. “I got through to the naval base in Washington State,” he said to Joe. “They’re hailing the cruise ship now.” He lifted his hand from the mouthpiece. “Yes?” he said into the telephone. “They’re not?” He looked up at Joe, his eyes dark with concern. “The ship’s not responding. Apparently, their radio’s down. The base has them on radar, and they’ve gone seriously off course.” He shook his head, his mouth tight with anger and frustration. “I believe we’ve got ourselves a crisis situation.”

  Veronica watched a second helicopter land on the sundeck.

  This couldn’t be happening. Five hours ago, she’d been having lunch with Ambassador Freder and his staff. Five hours ago, everything had been perfectly normal aboard the cruise ship Majestic. Tedric had been sleeping in, as was his habit. She’d been forcing down a salad even though she wasn’t hungry, even though her stomach hurt from missing Joe. Lord, she didn’t think it was possible to miss another person that badly. She felt hollow, empty, and hopelessly devoid of life.

  And then a dozen men, dressed in black and carrying automatic rifles and submachine guns, jumped out of one helicopter and swarmed across the deck of the cruise ship, declaring that the Majestic was now in their control, and all her passengers were their hostages.

  It seemed unreal, like some sort of strange movie that she was somehow involved in making.

  There were fewer than sixty people aboard the small cruise ship, including the crew. They were all on deck, watching and waiting as the second helicopter’s blades slowed and then stopped.

  No one made a sound as the doors opened and several men stepped out.

  One of them, a man with a pronounced limp who was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, smiled a greeting to the silent crowd. He had a wide, friendly, white-toothed smile set off by a thick salt-and-pepper beard. Without saying a word, he gestured to one of the other terrorists, who pulled the two FInCOM agents out in front of them all.

  The terrorists had cuffed the two security agents’ hands behind them, and now, as they were pushed to their knees in front of the bearded man, they fought to keep their balance.

  “Who are you?” one of the agents, a woman named Maggie Forte demanded. “What is this—”

  “Silence,” the bearded man said. And then he pulled a revolver from his belt and shot both agents in the head.

  Senator McKinley’s wife screamed and started to cry.

  “Just so you know our guns are quite real,” the bearded man said to the rest of them in his softly accented voice, “and that we mean business. My name is Diosdado.” He gestured to the other terrorists around him. “These men and women all work for me. Do as they say, and you will all be fine.” He smiled again. “Of course, there are no guarantees.”

  Veronica stared at the bright red blood pooling beneath the FInCOM agents’ bodies. They were dead. Just like that, a man and a woman were dead. The man—Charlie Griswold, he’d said his name was—had just had a new baby. He’d shown Veronica pictures. He’d been so proud, so in love with his pretty young wife. And now…

  God forgive her, but all she could think was Thank God it wasn’t Joe. Thank God Joe wasn’t here. Thank God that wasn’t Joe’s blood spreading across the deck.

  Diosdado limped toward Prince Tedric, who was standing slightly apart from the rest of them.

  “So we finally meet again,” the terrorist said. He used his submachine gun to knock the Stetson cowboy hat Tedric was wearing off his head.

  Tedric looked as if he might be ill.

  “Did you really think I’d forget about the agreement we made?” Diosdado asked.

  Tedric glanced toward the two dead agents lying on the deck. “No,” he whispered.

  “Then where are my long-range missiles?” Diosdado demanded. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to come through on your part of the deal.”

  Veronica couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Prince Tedric, involved in arms smuggling? She wouldn’t have believed he had the nerve.

  “I said I’d try,” Tedric hissed. “I made no promises.”

  Diosdado made tsking sounds. “Then it was very bad form for you to keep the money,” he said.

  Tedric straightened in shock. “I sent the money back,” he retorted. “I wouldn’t have kept it. Mon Dieu, I wouldn’t have…dared.”

  Diosdado stared at him. Then he laughed. “You know, I actually believe you. It seems my good friend Salustiano intervened more than once. No wonder he wanted you dead. He’d intercepted two million of my dollars that you were returning to me.” He laughed again. “Isn’t this an interesting twist?” He turned to his men. “Take the other hostages below, and His Highness to the bridge. Let’s see what a crown prince is worth these days. I may get my long-range missiles yet.”

  Navy SEAL Team Ten was airborne less than thirty minutes after Admiral Forrest contacted the naval base in Washington State. Joe sat in the air-force jet with his men, receiving nearly continuous reports from a Blackbird SR-71 spy plane that was circling at eighty-five thousand feet above the hijacked cruise ship, over the northern Pacific Ocean. The Blackbird was flying so high the terrorists and hostages on board the Majestic couldn’t have seen it even with high-powered binoculars.

  But with the Blackbird’s high-tech equipment, Joe could see the cruise ship. The pictures that were coming in were very sharp and clear.

  There were two bodies on the deck near two high-speed attack helicopters.

  Two bodies, two pools of blood.

  More detailed reports showed that one of the bodies was wearing a skirt, her legs angled awkwardly on the deck.

  One man, one woman. Both dead.

  Joe studied the picture, unable to see the woman’s features for all the blood. Please, God, don’t let it be Veronica! He glanced up to find Blue looking over his shoulder.

  Blue shook his head. “I don’t think it’s her,” he said. “I don’t think it’s Veronica.”

  Joe didn’t say anything at first. “It could be,” he finally said, his voice low.

  “Yeah.” Blue nodded. “Could be. And if it’s not, it’s someone that somebody else loves. It’s already a no-win situation, Cat. Don’t let it interfere with what we’ve got to do.”

  “I won’t,” he said. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That bastard Diosdado isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

  Veronica sat in the dining room with the other hostages, wondering what was going to come next.

  Tedric sat apart from the others, staring at the walls, his jaw clenched tightly, his arms crossed in front of him.

  It was funny, so many people had seen Joe and thought that he was Tedric. But to Veronica, their physical differences were so clearly obvious. Joe’s eyes were bigger and darker, his lashes longer. Joe’s chin was stronger, more square. Tedric’s nose was narrower, and slightly pinched looking at the end.

  Sure, they both had dark hair and dark eyes, but Tedric’s eyes shifted as he spoke, never settling on any one thing. Veronica had worked for hours and hours, trying to teach the prince to look steadily into the TV cameras. Joe, on the other hand, always looked everyone straight in the eye. Tedric was in constant motion—fingers tapping, a foot jiggling, crossing and uncrossing his legs. Joe’s energy was carefully contained. He could sit absolutely still, but one could feel his leashed power. He nearly throbbed with it, but it didn’t distract—at least, not all the time.

  Veronica closed her eyes.

  Was she ever going to see Joe again? What she would give to put her arms around him, to feel his arms holding her.

  But he was in Virginia. It was very likely that he hadn’t even heard about the hijacking yet. And what would he think when he found out? Would he even care? He’d been so cold, so formal, so