Chapter 15 #2
Aw, this would take forever. He took off, down the steps, around toward where he’d come from and back into the building.
The tour—he’d learned the inner workings of the Drama Theater, knew the inside passages. He ran. Up one set of stairs and more, all the way to the top. “West, c’mon, buddy, where are you?”
Static.
And then—as if God had heard him—West was there, standing near the windows of the upper terrace, holding his MacMillan TAC-300.
“What—”
“I need your weapon.” He reached for it before his conscious mind caught up.
West let it go, and Dakota hit the terrace railing and brought the scope to his eye.
“What—”
“Shooter on the boat.” He found the yacht moored in the harbor where he’d last seen it. And on the deck, a man with a rifle, settling into position behind the gunwale. Vic.
Dakota swung his scope down, following Vic’s line of sight.
The president.
Walking up the steps of the Opera House forecourt, surrounded by Secret Service, waving to the crowd. Completely exposed until he reached the bulletproof plexiglass.
Vic was taking aim.
Dakota’s finger found the trigger. He had one shot. He could make it from here—the range was long but manageable, the angle clean. Take out the assassin before he could fire.
And then he saw her.
On the deck, ten feet from Vic. On her knees. Hands behind her head. Jayden.
And behind her, a man with a pistol pressed to the back of her skull.
The world narrowed to two points in his scope. Vic, taking aim at the president. Jayden, seconds from execution.
He couldn’t take both shots. Not fast enough. The moment he fired at one, the other would act.
Kill the assassin, and Jayden died.
Save Jayden, and the president died.
One bullet. Two targets. An impossible choice.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
And yet, through the scope, he could see Jayden’s face. Calm. Resigned. She knew what was happening. Knew what he’d have to choose.
Her lips moved. He couldn’t hear her from this distance, but he could read her words.
Take the shot.
She was telling him to let her die.
Vic’s finger was tightening on his trigger.
I’m sorry.
Dakota pulled the trigger.
The crack of his rifle split the air. Vic jerked, the sniper rifle falling from his hands as he crumpled against the gunwale. The shot meant for the president went wide, sparking off concrete somewhere in the forecourt.
Screaming, Secret Service moving, the president down and now engulfed by suits, chaos erupting in the forecourt.
Dakota swung his rifle back to Jayden, already chambering another round—
A shot. Her body jerked. She pitched forward. He saw her go over the side of the boat, into the dark water of Sydney Harbour.
“No!”
The word tore out of him, raw and broken. He fired again—but her killer had already ducked inside.
She’d fallen on the far side of the boat.
The boat suddenly surged, churning up water, fleeing.
Dakota watched through his scope, searching desperately for movement in the foamy wake behind the boat—a head breaking the surface, an arm reaching up, anything.
Nothing.
The water settled. The ripples faded. The harbor went still.
From shore, security teams raced after the yacht, into the open ocean.
Dakota stood frozen on the terrace, rifle still raised, scope still fixed on the water where Jayden had disappeared.
He had saved the president.
He had stopped the assassin.
And he had watched the woman he loved take a bullet and fall into the dark, dirty water of the harbor.
And he could do nothing.
You’re never wrong if you’re trusting in God for the outcome.
Ham’s words echoed in the hollow space where his heart used to be.
He’d trusted. He’d had faith. He’d done everything right.
And this was the outcome.
The rifle slipped from his hands. Clattered against the terrace floor.
And then Dakota ran.
She wasn’t dead yet.
Jayden broke the surface gasping, choking on salt water, her lungs burning with the effort of finding air. The world spun—blue sky, white sails, the glittering expanse of Sydney Harbour wheeling around her like a carousel gone wrong.
She was in the water. She was bleeding. And Alan Martin was getting away.
The yacht was already fifty meters out, its white hull cutting a foamy trail toward the far side of the harbor.
The pain hit her then—a white-hot lance through her left side, just below her ribs. She looked down, saw the water around her blooming dark.
Shot. The word surfaced through the fog. Alan Martin had shot her.
Fragments came back in jagged pieces. The closet below deck, zip ties biting into her wrists. Working at the plastic until her fingers bled, until something finally gave. Kicking through the flimsy door—yacht locks built for privacy, not prison. The corridor, narrow and dim.
Alan appearing like a shadow, gun already raised.
The fight had been brutal and fast. Close quarters, no room for technique—just elbows and knees and desperation. And Alan had finally gotten her to the deck to, well, watch. Just like he’d promised.
Her entire body had turned to ice when Vic pulled the trigger. Probably, her getting shot was on her—she’d rallied, stood up, turned and kicked Martin, and he’d shot her, just like that.
The impact spun her into the railing. And then—over. The harbor rushing up to meet her, gulping her under, arms still tied.
She couldn’t get the force she needed to break the ties, and every kick earned her fire in her gut. She lay back, trying to breathe, to float, but the lapping water bled out over her face, into her nose.
She was going to drown.
And the president was dead.
Hopefully, Dakota had found the devices, saved lives. That mattered.
Sirens bruised the air, sliding over the water. The Secret Service had probably sent boats, but they’d mow right over her in the water. So that was great.
Think. Focus. She spotted shore—two hundred meters, maybe. Easy day.
But that was before the bullet. Before the blood loss. Before her hands were useless in the water.
Still, she flipped over to her stomach and started to kick, pushing down with her hands, like an oar of sorts, her blood feeding the fish.
Aw, she wasn’t going to make it.
The thought arrived without drama. Just a fact, cold and clear. Her arms turned to rubber, her legs numb. The icy water seeped into her bones, slowing everything down.
Yeah, she’d die here, alone.
She stopped swimming. Turned over again, floating, conserving what little strength remained. Above her, the sky was impossibly blue. The Harbour Bridge arched across it like a steel rainbow. Seagulls wheeled and cried, utterly indifferent to the woman dying in the water below.
Dakota.
She saw that steady gaze, that smile, the hundreds of ways he’d tried to protect her, showing her who he really was.
She didn’t deserve him. But oh, if she was honest—and why not right now, here at the end?—she loved him. Or could have loved him. Longed to have had the chance to figure it out.
To be . . . Tiffany? Or maybe all of her pieces as one. Jayden, and Katya, and Lynx . . .
The woman Dakota saw when he looked at her with those devastating blue eyes. A woman who was worth seeing. Worth knowing.
Because it had all been real, from the moment on the plane when she’d held his hand to the goodbye kiss at the Opera House. Real.
Because the messy, complicated, terrified parts weren’t the performance. Maybe they were the truth.
She coughed out water as a memory surfaced. Her sister’s room, years ago. The worn Bible on the nightstand, pages soft from use, verses underlined in faded yellow highlighter. Jayden had rolled her eyes at it once. Sentimental, she’d thought. Naive.
But now, floating in Sydney Harbour with her blood spreading through the water, the words came back unbidden:
“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Delight.