Are you out there, Ben? she wondered. Because I need you. I really need you. I’ll forget about all the problems, the hesitation, the emotional blindness. I’d forget everything if I could just see you walk through that door.

But she was being stupid. There was no way that could happen. She was trapped with a revenge-crazed lunatic. And judging by the way she felt, if the FBI didn’t do something soon, she would never see Ben again.

“Just tell us as much as you can,” Martinez said to Marshall over the phone. He had already blown step two: Contain. So he was trying for some hope of Reconcile. “Is she hurt badly?”

Ben felt a hollow, sick feeling in his stomach. Someone had tried to get the gun away from Bressler. And since Marie was unconscious and Hazel was in her sixties…

“I warned her!” Bressler screamed. “I warned you all!”

“Can you tell where the bullet struck her?”

“I don’t know. Looks like the leg.”

“Is she bleeding?”

“Yeah. A lot. She’s not going to last long.”

“Did the bullet pass through?”

“How the hell would I know?” Marshall’s voice rose. “What does it matter? If you don’t send me Glancy, the next bullet’s going into her skull!”

“Mr. Bressler, please let me come in. Let me be your hostage.”

“Why should I trust you? You’ll try something, I know you will.”

“I won’t.”

“You have two minutes left!” Bressler screeched. “If I don’t see Glancy by then, I’ll kill them all. If they aren’t dead already.”

“Mr. Bressler! Mr. Bressler!”

Agent Martinez continued to argue with the man, but Ben knew it would do no good. Marshall wasn’t going to change his mind. This far off his meds, he was way past reason. The FBI was stymied. And meanwhile Christina was dying by inches, losing more blood every second.

He made sure no one was looking. Then he quietly picked up one of the aural implants on the desk and pushed it into his left ear.

He walked slowly down the corridor, passing Agent Cross and the others. By the door, the three officers were still trying to get the fiber-optic cable through the hole in the wall.

“Change of assignment,” Ben said, mustering as much authority as he could manage. “Cross says she wants to see you immediately.”

“Now? We’ve almost got this working.”

“Sorry. Those are your orders.” The three men dropped their tools and started down the hallway.

Ben stood behind the door-knowing that alone made him a potential target-and shouted. “Marshall!”

From inside, he heard, “Who the-?”

“It’s Ben Kincaid. I’m coming in, Marshall.”

“The hell you are!”

“I am. And you’re not going to shoot me, Marshall. I’m unarmed. You said you thought I was the most honest geek on earth, remember? I think you called me a saint. So you know I’m not lying.”

“Kincaid!” This was Agent Cross, about twenty feet down the corridor, running his way. “Freeze immediately! Do not compromise this operation. We will use force if necessary to stop you.”

“Then you’ll have to shoot me in the back,” Ben muttered. “I’m coming in, Marshall!” Then he closed his eyes, said a quick, silent prayer, and turned the doorknob.

Before Agent Cross could stop him, he was inside.

“What are you doing in here? What are you doing?” Bressler waved his hands back and forth in the air. Both hands clutched the gun; he had two fingers wrapped around the trigger. Hazel was cowering in the corner, half hidden by the copying machine. Both Marie and Christina were slumped on the floor. The stillness, the pallor in Marie’s expression told Ben she was probably already dead. Blood was seeping out of Christina’s thigh, but her eyes were still open. Just barely. But open.

She was alive.

“I came for Christina,” Ben said. His heart was palpitating; he was breathing in deep staccato gulps. “And Marie. They need medical help. After I take them outside, I’ll come back and be your hostage.”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably.” Ben was having trouble understanding what the man was saying. Apparently the aural implant was affecting his ambient hearing. “But that’s what I’m going to do.”

“No, you won’t!” Marshall wheeled himself forward until he had the gun right under Ben’s nose. “You think you’re going to pull something. You’re trying to fool me!”

“I already told you, I’m not. I’m not armed at all.”

“Prove it!”

“All right, I will.” Slowly, one step at a time, Ben began removing his clothes. Come to think of it, he thought, this is the second time I’ve had to strip in a U.S. Senate building. This never happened to him back in Tulsa.

He continued disrobing, all the way down to his boxer shorts.

“Superman?” Bressler said, staring at the big red “S” shield on the front of Ben’s boxers.

“Well, people made fun of my last pair. So I switched to something more macho.”

“All right, so you’re clean. You’re still not taking anyone out of here.”

“Yes, Marshall, I am. And then I’ll come back and be your hostage. I promise you. I’ll stay as long as you need me to stay. You can drill me full of holes if that’s what you want. But first I’m getting the wounded women out of here.”

“You’re risking your damn life, you fool. Why would you do that?”

Ben paused and stared straight at the man in the wheelchair. Even off his meds, even totally off his rocker, there had to be some shred of sanity and decency left inside that head. “Because I don’t want Christina to die. Any more than you wanted Delia Collins to die.”

Ben took a slow small step, then another, toward Christina. He wobbled a bit as he moved. His legs were trembling, and worse, the implant in his ear was affecting his sense of balance.

“I’ll shoot you!”

“I don’t think you will, Marshall,” Ben said, not looking back. “Because you know you can trust me. And you don’t want these women to die. They didn’t hurt Delia. You have no reason to wish them harm.”

Suddenly, Ben heard an intense squawking in his left ear, so loud he initially thought it had burst his eardrum. “Kincaid? Can you hear us?”

Apparently someone noticed one of their implants was missing. He kept on walking.

“Kincaid!” It was Agent Cross. “You have endangered this entire operation. You will be fully prosecuted for interfering with a federal hostage situation.”

Ben kept walking.

“But since you’re in there, see if you can get some information out of him. We’ve got the fiber-optic camera working. We can see and hear you.”

Ben knelt beside Christina, his bare knees in the huge pool of blood. She could be dead already, he realized. He could be too late.

“I need to talk to her,” he told Bressler.

“No!” he shouted. “Not a word.”

“Please. I can’t let her lose consciousness.”

“I said, no!”

“Just let me ask her one question. One lousy question.”

Bressler wavered. “Fine. But that’s it. One question.”

Ben heard the crackling in his ear. Martinez this time. “Ask if there are any other hostages.”

Cross chirped in. “Ask if she’s seen any other weapons. Does he have a stash of ammo?”

Ben lifted Christina’s hand out of the blood, squeezed it between both of his hands, and asked, quietly, “Will you marry me?”

Christina’s eyelids fluttered. When she spoke, her voice sounded like rusty hinges. “What do you think I’ve been hanging around for all these years, you dunderhead? Of course I will. Now get me out of here.”

Ben saw the makeshift tourniquet tied around her upper thigh. A piece of her blouse. Damn she was tough. He tightened it, then wrapped his arms under her and lifted her up. He could tell the movement was causing her pain, but she kept it bottled up inside.

“Stay with us,” he murmured to her. “Just a little bit longer.”

“I’m watching you!” Marshall cried. “One false move and you’re dead!”