“Isabel is what?” Jack shouted.

“Fighting,” Joe replied, surprised the word came out. It felt like there were rocks in his throat. “She’s fighting Blake and—oh God.” He watched as she beat at Blake with handcuffs or restraints on her wrists, then started whaling on the driver. He was torn between cheering her on and screaming at her to stop it. They were undoubtedly armed. What the fuck was she thinking?

Though she was magnificent.

The van ahead fishtailed.

“She’s fighting the driver.” Joe couldn’t take his eyes from the binocs. It was like watching a train wreck.

The van swerved onto the other lane, then veered back into the right-hand lane. Isabel was a red-gold ninja, limbs moving almost too quickly to follow in the IR lenses, so quickly her movements left a red-gold trail, like manifestations of ghosts.

The van turned into the Morrison Bridge, wobbling. Thank God there was very little traffic on the roads.

“What?” Jack asked urgently. “What’s happening?”

“She’s putting up a real fight,” Joe said, terrified, trying to keep the pride out of his voice. “She’s got her head real close to the driver’s face. I think, um...” He held the monitor up to try to decipher what was going on. Isabel’s and the driver’s heads together formed one big red-yellow blob. Isabel pulled away and the driver took a hand off the wheel to place it against his head. “I think she bit him. Or kissed him.”

One or the other.

The van swerved again only instead of righting itself, it curved even farther to the right.

“Hey!” Joe shouted at the driver of the van. “You crazy fuck! You’re going to go off the bridge!”

The van speeded up as it rammed the bridge spars, broke through them and plunged straight down into the cold water of the river.

“Stop the car!” Joe screamed.

Jack stood on the brakes and Joe opened the door before it came to a complete halt. He studied the black water as he tore his boots and jacket off, figuring out his moves, figuring out how to get to Isabel because not saving her was not an option. He was either going to come up with Isabel or he wasn’t coming up at all.

He’d clocked in four and a half minutes underwater during training but only after super oxygenating and not moving in the water. On a rescue mission he could last two minutes, tops. That wasn’t important, though. The only important thing was how long Isabel could last.

He only had time to pull in two deep breaths, filling his lungs up completely with air then exhaling deeply by the time he stood on the edge of the bridge where the van had crashed through the barrier.

Isabel was a civilian and civilians didn’t last long underwater. She’d be terrified and panicky and flailing. She’d last thirty-forty seconds before she tried to pull in a terrified breath and breathed water. At least the water was freezing cold which slowed things down a little. Make that fifty seconds, tops.

Joe started the clock in his head as he stood barefoot on the edge of the bridge just long enough to calculate the entry point of the dive.

The van’s roof was disappearing underwater. There would be some air trapped inside the cabin and Isabel was smart enough to take advantage of that. He had to dive as close to the vehicle as possible. One second to calibrate and he dove.

The water was freezing cold and black. The van’s headlights were on and he used that as guidance as he fought the swirls of water displaced by the sinking van. In a few hard strokes he was there at the front passenger door, barely able to see inside by the glow of the headlights. Isabel was still flailing and for a second he couldn’t understand why as he floated just outside the window.

Ten seconds.

Then he saw that the driver was still attacking her.

Goddammit. He had his Glock in its shoulder holster but he couldn’t use it underwater, much as he’d like to just shoot the murderous fuck in the head. On some missions his Glock had been equipped with maritime spring cups that protected the firing pin but this one didn’t have it. Beyond that, the shock wave could damage Isabel’s internal organs, could even kill her.

He pounded on the window to get her attention and she turned, face lighting up when she saw him.

Goddamn. His heart simply turned over in his chest. She’d just fought off two murderous men, she was in a vehicle that was submerged in water, he had no idea if she could even swim, she was surely terrified and the love in her face when she saw him nearly blew him apart.

No one had ever looked at him like that before. He was not going to lose this woman. He was going to save her and if she’d have him, he was going to marry her. And if she wouldn’t have him, he’d just keep asking.

Twenty seconds.

The driver was reaching for her again, movements impeded by the water rushing in.

Joe motioned Isabel away. By some miracle she understood and moved slightly to one side and Joe drove the butt of his Glock with all his strength against the glass pane. It broke, shards of glass floating in the water. Too bad. If they got cut, they’d get stitched up. The important thing was to get to the surface.

He quickly broke away all the pieces of glass clinging to the window frame, reached in past Isabel and with a quick movement of his hands broke the driver’s neck, then put his hands under Isabel’s arms and pulled her out.

Thirty seconds.

From the backseat, a hand reached out, flailing. Blake. Joe watched coldly as Blake’s desperate face appeared, bubbles around his head. He was drowning.

Good. Joe hadn’t bought into the whole bringing-Blake-to-justice thing anyway. The fucker deserved to die.

The heavy vehicle was pushed sideways by the swirling water, crashing into his leg, dragging a shard of glass with it. His blood darkened the water. There was no pain—the water was too cold for that. But if his leg wouldn’t function, it would take longer to get Isabel to the surface. He pulled her completely out of the window just as the van settled on the bottom, hoping no remaining glass was cutting her open.

His right leg wasn’t working right. Fuck. The plan was to hold Isabel and propel them both upward with the strength of his legs. But with only one leg functional, there was only one thing he could do.

Forty seconds.

There wasn’t enough light for Isabel to follow gestures so he took her arms and placed them tightly around his neck and hoped to God she understood. She did. She held on tightly as he began to rise in the water using the full power of his arms and his one leg.

Fifty seconds.

It felt like it took forever, hauling both of them up through the dark, freezing, muddy water. Almost immediately he lost the light of the headlights of the van and could see nothing, nothing at all. Not even Isabel’s face so close to his.

Damn.

He knew she was alive because she was holding his neck but he thought he felt her grip lessen.

Please God.

Please don’t let this brave, beautiful woman die. Take me instead. But if he was too slow, he’d live because he was a navy SEAL and had trained for a year to dive and come up in dark cold water. He’d live but Isabel would die.

Fifty-five seconds.

Isabel’s grip was loose. She was dying.

Light! Faint, barely perceptible. He aimed his face up and pulled as hard as he could.

Fifty-eight seconds.

Joe broke the water on a huge gasp, just as Isabel went loose in his arms.

His head swiveled as he looked up at the bridge where the men had angled the headlights to shine over the water. Jack was shining a powerful flashlight into the water.

“Rope!” Joe screamed just as a rope hit the water five feet from him. He was bearing Isabel’s full weight now. Her eyes were closed and through chattering teeth he started praying.