Egon felt like he was suspended in air, his whole body floating somewhere above his head. His collapsed lung only allowed slow little sucks of breath, and he waited for the blackness to descend-the kind he'd always heard described before death. The low murmur of Carey's voice drifted across the lawn. He tried to shout to him, but he couldn't draw enough air into his lungs. Then, as he lay there waiting to die, and no blackness or dazzling light appeared, it occurred to him that perhaps he wouldn't die. And a spirit of hope possessed him. He moved his hand slightly, feeling the damp grass. But when he tried to move his legs, they wouldn't move, and the effort brought choking blood into this throat and mouth. He thought with despair: I'm going to bleed to death. The silence became alarming instead of comforting. Was Carey dying, too? And Molly? Would Rifat's men find Mariel and kill her also? In agony he lay bleeding into the grass, unable to move, suffocating from lack of air in his lungs.

He closed his eyes. When he looked up again, Carey was kneeling over him, his face a mirror of despair.

“I can't feel my legs,” Egon said, but his voice was so weak Carey had to put his head next to his lips to hear him.

“It's all right, Egon,” Carey said. “You're going to be all right.” And he looked away so the lie wouldn't show in his eyes. Egon's right shoulder was torn apart, and the sound of his lungs was like so many he'd heard in Vietnam before the blood choked off all the air.

“I did fine this time, didn't I?” Egon whispered. “I stood up to Rifat.”

“You were great,” Carey said, tears welling in his eyes. “You saved my life.”

Molly knelt near Carey, tears streaming down her face. Wanting some miracle to make Egon whole again, she watched him struggle for air.

“You… owe me… now.” Egon's words were the merest whisper of sound, and the smile he attempted the most stirring act of courage Molly had ever seen.

Carey nodded, not capable of speaking.

“Mariel-” Agitated, Egon tried to say more but, gasping for air, he fell silent.

“I'll take care of her,” Carey promised. “My word on it.”

And the panic on Egon's face subsided. “Love you,” Egon whispered.

“I love you, too,” Carey murmured, his voice husky with emotion. As Egon's eyes closed, a strange anger overcame Carey… as though he could fight death or stay its hand. He wasn't going to let Egon die. He'd breathe air into his lungs if need be, and replace his blood with his own. But he needed a doctor most. Galvanized into action, he stood in an abrupt movement. “Stay with him,” was all he said as he ran toward the house.

He got a call through to Jess, and said, “Get a helicopter. Egon's wounded. Bring a doctor. He'll know where Le Retour is. Hurry.” And he hung up, slamming the receiver down and reaching for a drapery at the same time. Pulling the curtain down with a rough jerk, he tossed it over his arm. Grabbing a tablecloth off the dining room table, he ran back to Molly.

Outside, Carey tore the cloth into strips and began bandaging Egon's bleeding shoulder. Molly watched him gently pack the wound and bind it tightly until the worst of the bleeding was under control. Then he covered Egon with the heavy velvet drapery to prevent shock. While he dressed Egon's wound, he kept looking up, listening for the chopper, pausing for a second in the hope they'd hear the sound of its approach. “You'd better get Mariel. They could be here soon,” he told Molly.

When Molly brought Mariel down, she knelt beside Egon, took his hand in hers, and prayed. He was no longer conscious. His breathing was shallow and labored, his skin completely drained of color.

No one spoke.

In the aftermath of the horror she'd witnessed, Molly felt drained and lifeless. Carey held her in the security of his arms. She leaned back against his chest, letting the emptiness in her mind calm the memories of the awful destruction. When she began to shake, Carey's arm tightened around her, his voice soothing. “It's over. Hush, hush, it's over.” Carey placed his other hand over Egon's, as if he could pass his own energy into his friend, as if he could protect both people he loved with his own powerful strength.

He looked like some great white hunter in khaki jacket and shorts, both stained with Egon's blood. His feet were bare, his tanned body sweat-sheened from his exertions, his gilded hair in spiked disarray under the tranquil tropical moon. He was disheveled and bloody, but steady, and cool, alert for the sound of Jess's approach.

For a disquieting moment she thought: I don't know this man, this unflagging, proficient killer who can go through all this untouched. She sensed the inherent power he possessed, like some inhuman machine without feeling or sentiment.

But it wasn't true. His face ached from the powder burns, and he was exhausted now that his adrenaline had stopped pumping. And bloody images haunted his mind-all the killing ones from Vietnam.

He heard the faint rhythm first. “Jess is here,” Carey said. Releasing Molly, he bent low over Egon. “The doctor's here, Egon, You hear, brat? The doctor's come.” He thought there was a glimmer of movement beneath his eyelids, but when he looked again there was only quiet and the face of death.

Sylvie was the first one off the chopper. When she came within range, Carey shouted, “If you're not going to help, get the hell away.” He didn't want any scenes or screaming tears or questions. He didn't care why she was here or how she'd arrived. All that mattered was grabbing at the slim chance Egon had at life. “And if you know how to pray,” he added, as she halted in midstride, shocked at his brutal tone, “you'd better start.”

Continuing past her, he helped unload the oxygen and stretcher. He answered the doctor's questions in succinct phrases, and wordlessly aided the doctor when he eased Egon onto the stretcher.

Subdued by Carey's warning and the sight of Egon's grave wounds, Sylvie was remarkably quiet. She only said, “We'll follow you,” when Carey informed her he was bringing Egon to Miami. Her private jet which had landed in Montego Bay, was parked near Carey's.

The flight to Miami was funereal. Carey wouldn't talk, but sat with his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands. Mariel had found a rosary somewhere, and the doctor and two nurses who'd joined them at the airport spoke in the hushed tones of a death watch.

Carey seemed remote from the man Molly had loved long years ago in their heated summer of passion. Even the sweet, caring man she'd rediscovered short weeks ago had disappeared. She found herself with a silent, merciless gunslinger, a competent killer who had taken control with quiet efficiency as though he stalked hired assassins every day of his life.

The flying bullets had been too real, as were the deadly tone of Carey's voice and the ice in his eyes. She felt a small shiver of fear travel down her spine. Did she really know him at all?

Their arrival at Jackson Memorial Trauma Center didn't alleviate her feelings of uncertainty and doubt. Carey Fersten, a VIP of the first magnitude, was treated with deference by everyone from the admitting clerk to the head surgeon.

Although Carey was concerned for her comfort, Molly found him curiously detached, as if he found it odd to see her still beside him as they entered the trauma center. And much later, when the team of doctors had stabilized Egon's shocked and damaged body, he'd said in a cool voice, “Would you excuse me for a moment, darling? The doctors want to brief Sylvie and me on Egon's condition.” And he walked away with his beautiful ex-wife. His head was tipped low in conversation, giving every appearance of being deeply attached.

Mariel, who had scarcely said a word or looked up from her rosary, patted Molly's hand in comfort.

Molly silently cautioned herself against reading erroneous interpretations into Carey's tenderness toward Sylvie. Good Lord, she chastised herself, he loved Egon, and the next hours could see his young friend gone forever, could see Sylvie's only family disappear forever. They needed each other now, and she'd be the most unfeeling monster to deny them the solace they found in each other.

At last everyone re-assembled in the waiting room. While Molly, Sylvie, and Mariel sat and listened, Carey asked questions about Egon's condition.

The doctors didn't have much hope. Egon had been given last rites. Even if he survived, there was a possibility his paralysis would be permanent. A bullet had lodged near his spine, and was in too precarious a position to attempt removal. Continued pressure was aggravating the paralysis, but surgery now could be lethal.

“I'm so sorry,” Molly said softly.

Mariel cried without uttering a sound.

And Sylvie threw her arms around Carey's neck and wept.

They stayed at the hospital through the night. Carey arranged rooms for them, but no one could sleep with Egon near death. Carey, Sylvie, and Mariel took turns at his bedside.

When he wasn't with Egon, Carey prowled like a caged tiger. I'll kill him for you, Egon, he silently vowed, his need for revenge terrifying in its violence. And later, when he sat by Egon's bed again, watching him struggle to breathe, all his anger and frustration was directed toward Rifat. “Live, Egon, just live,” he whispered to the still, quiet form attached to all the machines and tubes and tanks. “I'll kill him, I promise.”

Rifat's greed had to be stopped, his senseless brutality brought to an end. Carey had never considered himself a crusader; he avoided politics and causes, always contributed anonymously to charities, not wanting the publicity. Even his impulse for soldiering in Vietnam had been inspired by family tradition, rather than patriotic zeal.

But now a black and savage vengeance overcame Carey, a murderous rage that demanded retribution for what Rifat had done to Egon. People like Rifat preyed on weakness and fear. They didn't take the chances themselves. They only gave the orders, detached from the human suffering, the unmitigated terror their greed imposed on other human beings.

For the first time in his life, Carey was a zealot. All he could think of as he sat at Egon's bedside was the retribution he would exact. Nothing else distracted his thoughts, no room existed in his mind for other emotions. His urge to kill was the only positive energy he felt.

The doctors held no hope for Egon.

As he waited, Carey planned every move: what he'd need, how he'd enter Rifat's house, the equipment necessary to avoid detection. “Come on, Egon,” he softly pleaded, bending near so Egon might hear him, “keep breathing.” Like an older brother promising to fight the playground bully, Carey said, “I'll kill Rifat for you.”

And he smiled when he saw a tiny flicker of Egon's eyelid. “Hold on, brat. I need you to make my life interesting.”

That afternoon the doctors made a cautious prognosis. Egon's kidneys had begun functioning, an improvement that moved him into the everyday miracle stage.

It was near midnight when he opened his eyes-only once, but he focused on Carey.

“Welcome back,” Carey said softly.

A dozen times Molly had begun to say, “I'm going back home.” But her declaration would seem tactless and disrespectful when Egon lay dying, so she stayed and watched Carey withdraw into himself.

Molly had had her taste of adventure. Now, in the shrouded gloom of Egon's death vigil, her swift journey into near extinction was enough to last her ten lifetimes. No longer exhilarated or impelled by a need for self-reliance, she only experienced an enormous despair. Disillusion had set in, and all she wanted to do was crawl into her sheltered cocoon and pretend men didn't kill other men over drugs and guns and money. She wanted to go back to Carrie and bring her home. Just before dinner, she told Carey her wishes.

“You can't,” he said bluntly. “Not until Rifat's terminated.”

“Terminated?” A sharp criticism was delivered with the single word. “Why don't you say what you mean?” They were standing in the hall near the windows overlooking the parking lot, where waves of heat rose from the asphalt in transparent vapor.

“Okay, killed. Better? I'm going to kill the mother-fucker,” he said with ruthlessness, his eyes black with hate.

She took a reflexive step backward. “I don't know you like this,” she whispered.

“The war was over when I met you,” he curtly replied.

“Have you…” she hesitated, not knowing why she felt impelled to ask, thinking maybe there was a simple answer to understanding this stranger standing before her. “Have you killed many people?”

“Lots,” he said in a voice devoid of warmth.