Rogue Commander. Leo J. Maloney

didn’t know whether he’d bring Lukacs to the exchange either. It made his skin crawl to agree with Kirby, but the bastard was right about what it would mean for Lukacs to go free.

      Morgan did not have to make up his mind because they were hailed on the screen by Bloch.

      “I spoke to Smith,” said Bloch. “We’ve come to a decision.”

      Morgan’s fingers tightened on the chair’s armrests.

      “We are going to make the exchange. We’re going to get Lily back. Get in touch with Tactical and plan this operation. We are not losing anyone today.”

      Chapter Four

      Dan Morgan moved forward, tense, alert like prey in predator country. Lukacs, with a bag over his head, was walking alongside him, hands in cuffs. Morgan led him by the arm.

      Stromovka Park was dark, all the lights having been turned off because it was hours after closing time. The ground was carpeted in yellow and orange leaves, fallen off the trees. They crunched underfoot as the team advanced, well spaced out.

      “You’re coming up on the rendezvous, dead ahead,” Shepard said through their comms. “I got five of them total. Only one with the build to be Lily, in the center.”

      “Time to break off,” Morgan said. “Take positions and keep out of sight.”

      The team, wielding rifles and night vision, disappeared into the darkness to surround Lukacs’s mercs. Morgan, who was taking the lead, couldn’t afford the clunkiness of the goggles, so he had to see by the scant light of the moon.

      His eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out the shape of things. They were approaching a broad open space—a pond whose shore was dotted with low-hanging willow trees, its limp branches swaying in the chill wind.

      He saw the figures in the darkness, moving as he approached. Five of them in all. He spotted Lily in the middle, where Shepard said she’d be, in a heavy jacket that didn’t belong to her. The lower part of her face, from nostrils to chin, was tightly wrapped with industrial tape.

      A merc with a golden tooth, glinting even in the moonlight, stepped forward. “She is a screamer,” he said, motioning to Lily. Then he looked at Morgan’s prisoner, head hidden under a bag. “Show me Lukacs.”

      Morgan pulled the bag off Lukacs’s head. He squinted as the merc shone the flashlight in his face.

      “Good. You have your own men, watching us, of course.”

      “Of course,” Morgan said. “I want my agent back. Now.”

      “Fair exchange is fair,” the merc said. “Nobody wants violence here. Give us Lukacs, we give you the girl, and we each go on our way.”

      “Fine,” said Morgan. “I say go, and both begin walking.”

      Lily’s eyebrows were doing a dance like they were straining to meet in the middle. She was trying to tell him something. She looked down pointedly, then looking back at him in expectation.

      Damn. Anything could be under that coat with her. He was going to have to play it by ear. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go. Nice and easy.”

      Morgan nudged Lukacs, who started walking, as Lily did the same.

      Tension filled the air as the two prisoners walked. Lukacs’s men had their hands on their guns, holstered, and Morgan was ready to draw.

      “Eyes on the prize,” Morgan said, through the communicator. “Anyone seeming to go for a detonator should be dropped.”

      Lily passed Lukacs halfway between Morgan and the merc with the gold teeth. Their footsteps crunching on dry leaves were deafening in the silence.

      She crossed the distance to Morgan. When she reached him, she looked down at the tape around her mouth and moved her jaw around. But instead of trying to tear the swath off, Morgan grabbed her coat and tore it open.

      “They strapped her with explosives!” Morgan barked, sending the team into immediate action—including Shepard, whose fingers were flying over his keyboards half a world away.

      As Lukacs’s team drew their guns. Morgan moved to reach for his, but he didn’t have to. Conley, Bishop, and Spartan were flanking him within a fraction of a second.

      “If we die, we take you with us,” the gold-toothed merc said and added, for effect, “Boom.”

      “Then defuse her,” said Morgan. “Then we all leave here with everything we want.”

      The man grinned, tooth glinting in the scarce light. “I do not think so. Good luck. You have about forty-five seconds.”

      They walked backward, guns drawn, deeper into the darkness, taking Lukacs with them. Bishop and his team had them in their sights, but a slaughter was the last thing they needed right then.

      “Stand down,” Morgan said, turning his attention to Lily and the two packets of C4 duct-taped around her torso. “You, too, Shepard. No signal to block. It’s a classic time bomb.” He quickly pulled out a pocket flashlight and spotlighted the device.

      “Forty,” Bishop said, already counting down.

      “They’ve run wires twice around her waist,” Conley noted, looking for any booby traps as he started unwrapping Lily’s mouth. Her breathing was heavy, and her green eyes were wet with fear.

      “It’s a hasty job,” Morgan said. “Amateurish.” Even so, his hands remained careful.

      “Piece of cake, then?” Spartan said flatly, trying to keep even a hint of hope out of her voice.

      “Didn’t say that.”

      “Thirty-five,” Bishop said.

      The C4, detonator, and blasting caps were all encased in a thick envelope of duct tape. Morgan pulled out his pocket knife and probed at it. “At least it looks like there’s no shrapnel,” he said.

      “Hooray,” Spartan deadpanned.

      “Let’s do it,” he said as much for his own benefit as hers. Then he barked to the others, “Take cover. There’s nothing you can do here.”

      Conley snorted. “Yeah, right,” he drawled. “And leave you two exposed to snipers?”

      “Thirty,” Bishop said.

      Conley tore a hole in the tape gag, finally freeing Lily’s parched lips. “You all go,” she gasped. “I’ll dive into the lake.”

      Morgan’s lips curled into a mirthless smile. “I’m not abandoning you here, English. It’s either both of us or neither of us.”

      “Twenty-five,” Bishop continued quietly.

      Morgan brought the blade against the tape and started cutting. It was so thick and jumbled with wires he could only cut half an inch at a time. It didn’t help that every slice might reduce the two of them to mincemeat.

      “Twenty,” said Bishop.

      “Hurry up.” The words seemed torn from Lily’s teeth.

      “This is not the time to be rushing me!”

      “Then when is?”

      He finished slicing through. The wires and tape were a tangled mess, but it was enough for Lily to wriggle free in record time. But one thing remained holding the bomb vest in place: the wires winding around Lily’s torso.

      “Fifteen.”

      Morgan was certain he couldn’t cut through them—breaking the circuit would most likely set off the bomb, if the mercs were half-competent, which from the looks of the circuits they were.

      “Oh yeah,” Conley said. “The old which-wire-to-cut conundrum.”

      Morgan felt his lips pull back from his