Page 19

EPILOGUE

PORTLAND, A MONTH LATER

“T o Summer and Jack!” Isabel raised her glass and everyone else did, too. The entire crew of ASI and of Suzanne Huntington’s company drank to them.

Jack had to drink left handed because his entire right arm was still in a sling. The bullet wound had required surgery and some rehab which Metal—who had turned out be quite a sadist—was overseeing. Getting shot sucked, but it had tipped Summer over into accepting his proposal, so there was that.

The engagement was being celebrated in a beautiful lodge on Mount Hood and Isabel catered. It was a rowdy crowd but everyone grew silent each time a new course came out.

There was a lot to celebrate. Their engagement. Jack’s new job with ASI. The founding of Summer’s new blog, Natura , dedicated to the environment. She said she was sick of politics and that the environment was more important. She ran the blog out of their new home, on the street where Isabel and Joe lived. They were celebrating the day, two weeks ago, when the Director of the FBI went to visit the Deputy Director of the CIA, Marcus Springer, and presented him with a warrant for his arrest for 720 counts of conspiracy to murder—the Washington Massacre—and high treason. The plan to bring down the electricity grid over half the United States had been found in Hector’s files and no doubt would be found in Springer’s files.

Summer had shattered the fiber optic cable just in time. Another two seconds and they’d be in the dark, surrounded by chaos.

There was another big thing to celebrate. Jack had found out via an old Harvard friend. He’d asked him to keep him advised and he had just gotten word.

Summer smiled wryly at him, looking at her left-hand ring finger. She complained about how big her engagement ring was and how much it bothered her when she worked. But she never took it off. Jack had bought the biggest diamond he could, just to show the world who she belonged to.

But the fact was, Summer belonged to the world.

Even staying by his side day and night in the hospital, Summer had written hard-hitting articles on the conspiracy that had knocked the political world off its axis. A dope of a man, John London, was supposed to be the next president, but when she wrote about the deal he’d made with Hector and Marcus Springer—to do the bidding of the Chinese once he was president—he was out of the running and retired to his country home. A new wind was sweeping Washington because it turned out many politicians had been complicit in the plan.

The Chinese denied any knowledge of the plan, blaming it on rogue elements and executing General Chen Yi, the head of the cyber unit of the PLA. New trade agreements were in place, all favorable to the US.

Summer’s articles, all dedicated to the memory of Zac Burroughs and Marcie Thompson, had made history.

And she was going to make history once again.

Jack stood, tapped his knife against a glass. The room quieted.

“I think all of you know that I am the luckiest man alive. I don’t know how, but I managed to get Summer to agree to marry me. Of course I had a bullet in me and she couldn’t know that I’d survive and hold her to her promise—” He waited for the laughter to die down. “But being a woman of her word, Summer has agreed to marry me and we have decided to have a June wedding. You are all invited.”

The room broke into an uproar, everyone grinning. Jacko took the opportunity to grab the last piece of blueberry cheesecake and winked at him.

“But I have more news,” Jack went on. “Of the good variety. I have just received word from a good friend of mine that my beloved Summer Redding, soon to be Summer Delvaux, has just been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. She’ll be getting the official call in a minute or two. So help me raise a toast?—”

Jack smiled down into Summer’s shocked face, knowing he was going to be looking at that face for the rest of his life, and that she would be winning award after award. And that he would love her all his life.

“Help me raise a toast to Summer, the woman I love more than life itself, the most amazing woman in the world.”