Suddenly Gideon noticed something. Taped to the inside of every soldier’s left forearm was a photograph of Tillman. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out that it meant Tillman was their target.

“Wait!” Gideon shouted, as Tillman crested the stairs, brandishing the Makarov.

“There’s been a mistake! Don’t shoot him!” Gideon flung himself in front of Tillman’s body. For a moment everyone froze. Four carbines were leveled at Gideon’s chest.

One of the men’s eyes flicked to the photo on his arm, trying to make sure who he had authorization to kill here.

“Drop it! Put that weapon down! Do it now!”

“Don’t!” Gideon shouted. “He’s not the enemy here.”

The soldiers hesitated, puzzled.

Then a man in a dark suit stepped out from behind a door.

“Excellent work, boys!” the man said. “I’m assistant national security advisor Earl Parker.” Parker scanned the soldiers to determine which one was in command. He quickly ascertained that the ranking officer was a tall man at the back of the cluster of soldiers who was clearly favoring one leg. Parker’s voice rang with parade ground military authority. “Major Royce, that man is the terrorist Tillman Davis. His brother, Gideon Davis, was his inside man, coordinating this terrorist operation. Shoot them.”

“Sir?Rhe ±€†21; the Delta officer said.

“I have direct authorization from the president,” Earl Parker snapped. “Your orders are to use lethal force.”

Gideon continued shielding his brother with his body. “He has no such authority!” Gideon shouted. “I work directly for the president—”

“Shoot them!” Parker shouted. “These are enemies of the United States.”

Gideon saw then that the Delta Force commander was badly injured. One of his feet was turned around almost backward, like a broken GI Joe doll. He was sweating profusely, and his skin was pale. “Down on the ground,” the Delta Force major grunted. “Both of you. I’m taking you both into custody until I sort this out.”

“On the ground!” his men echoed.

“Put the gun down, Tillman,” Gideon said softly. “Put it down or they’ll kill you.”

Reluctantly Tillman set down the Makarov, got on his knees, and laced his fingers behind his head.

“You need to take them out, Major!” Parker shouted.

Royce shook his head. “Sir, I can’t—” He grabbed the wall next to him like he was about to lose his balance. “I can’t authorize . . .”

“He’s lying!” Tillman said. “He’s the one who—”

“Shut it!” An enormous blond soldier lifted his rifle like he was going to swat Tillman across the face.

Tillman eyed the man briefly, then decided to keep his mouth shut. He glared at Parker.

“D Deck clear!” a voice shouted from below.

“All decks clear!” another voice called.

“Major Royce,” Earl Parker said, “you’re obviously confused about your orders, I’m going to have the president call you directly.”

“Mr. Parker, until the rig is secure I need you to—” Parker ignored Royce, turning his back on the soldiers and walking briskly past Tillman and down the stairs. Under other circumstances, the Delta commander might have enforced his authority more vigorously. But it was obvious he was barely holding himself together against the pain of his injury.

“You son of a bitch!” Tillman shouted. “You sold me out!”

The big blond soldier backhanded Tillman, knocking him over, as the other Delta Force operatives pinned the brothers to the ground, knees on their necks.

As Earl Parker disappeared down the stairs, it all came clear in Gideon’s mind: Earl Parker was improvising an exit strategy. He would return to Washington saying that Tillman and Gideon had been in league with each other from the very beginning. Parker could be trusted to have assembled a long and detailed trail of evidence to bolster his claim that Tillman was behind the seizure of the rig. From there it wouldn’t be hard to push the claim a little farther—saying that Gideon had been involved, too. Blood was thicker than water, right?

em"±€†

Once they got back to the States, Parker’s story would seem more plausible than Gideon’s. Except for Prejean, Kate, and Gideon, none of the hostages who were still alive had ever seen Parker interacting with Timken. Nor had they ever seen Timken’s face. As far as everybody on the rig knew, Tillman had run the show when the bad guys seized the Obelisk. Now Timken and his men were almost certainly all dead. Gideon was pretty sure that Big Al was dying. If Big Al died, there was only one other person on the rig—other than Tillman and Gideon—who could testify directly about Parker’s involvement with the plot.

Kate.

If Parker could eliminate Kate, it would be Gideon’s word against Parker’s.

The logical conclusion hit him with the force of a fist in the gut: Parker was going to kill Kate.

And he was going to do it now.

“Major Royce,” Gideon shouted at the commanding officer of the Delta men. “You have to stop Parker. If you’re going to detain me, then at least detain him, too!”

Royce’s face was white. It was obvious he was in great pain from his wrecked foot. His teeth were clenched and he seemed close to losing consciousness.

“Major Royce!”

The officer sat down hard on a barrel and blinked. “Sergeant Williams,” he said vaguely. “I think I need medical attention. You’re gonna have to take . . . uh . . .”

“Sir?” a lean black soldier said.

Royce lost consciousness and fell over sideways, his head hitting the barrel with a hollow clang.

“Sergeant Edy,” the thin black soldier barked, “you need to render assistance to the CO. I’m gonna go down and make sure the platform is clear. Sergeant Nilson, secure these individuals while I reconnoiter.”

“Hold on, Sergeant Williams!” Gideon said. “You need to—”

But the lean black soldier ignored Gideon and hurried down the stairs.

The corpsman got busy working on the downed officer’s foot.

“Sergeant!” Gideon called again.

“Sir, you need to be quiet right now.” Nilson turned out to be the huge blond man. He was a good six foot five, and a muscular two-eighty. Gideon could see there was no arguing with him.

Gideon spotted Earl Parker in the distance. He had reached the bridge to the other half of the rig and was walking purposefully toward the BLP. A Makarov now dangled inconspicuously from his hand. He’d obviously harvested the weapon from one of Timken’s dead mercenaries. Gideon saw that Parker had screwed a silencer onto the barrel.

The dive station where Gideon had left Kate and Big Al was on the far side of the BLP, out of sight of any of the small group of Delta men on the drilling platform.

“Parker is going over there to kill a woman who can testify against him,” Gideon whispered to Tillman. “I need your help.”

“Sir! I instructed you to be quiet. I’m not saying it again!” Sergeant Nilson loomed over Gideon, the barrel of his M-4 perilously close to Gideon’s face.

It wouldn’t take any time at all before Parker reached Kate. When he did, he’d just shoot her. With a silenced Makarov, no one would even hear the shot.

Parker would tell the Delta guys that he’d heard her calling, gone to help her out, and found her dead from her wounds. No one would even think twice. Just an unlucky hostage caught in the crossfire.

Gideon desperately scanned the chopper deck. Major Royce was still down, and the corpsman was still busy working on his wrecked foot.

Which meant that if they could get the huge Nilson out of the way, Gideon might have a chance to make it to the BLP in time to save Kate.

One of the beautiful things about family is that sometimes you barely have to say anything in order to communicate.

After their parents died, Earl Parker had paid for Tillman and Gideon to attend boarding school, where they’d both played football. Gideon had been the up-and-coming freshman quarterback, and Tillman had been the journeyman fullback. Though Tillman got the odd screen pass or off tackle running play, he had primarily been a blocking fullback. Which meant he’d spent most of his senior year getting smashed by boys who outweighed him by fifty pounds as he protected his brother.