Deidre stopped in her tracks with her mouth hanging open.

  “Are you freaking kidding me right now?” Deidre asked. “A whole team of them?”

  “I know. Right?” Mary set off, dragging her case. “Now stop drooling. And stop staring. Come on. Wrench your eyes away.”

  Deidre came up beside her. “Okay, so that was a treat. I hope they make all Estonian men like that. If that’s the case, I completely understand why Mrs. V. sent you here.”

  “Onward,” Mary said. “Taxi to the hotel.”

  “It’s only a few miles away. A ten-minute drive through morning traffic.”

  And Deidre had been right. Except for the delay from the street repair, they’d made it right to their hotel. It was a nice place. Everyone spoke easy English. While Deidre had gone in search of coffee, Mary got their luggage stored in the closet behind the desk until they could check in later that afternoon. Then, she went outside to sit on the bench under a tree, waiting for Deidre. They needed to figure out what they were going to do with themselves until three when they could check into their room.

  Deidre moved into Mary’s view. Her hands wrapped around to-go cups of coffee. “I know why you’re here,” Deidre said, plopping down next to her friend, handing the cup with a B penned in black marker.

  Black, high test—that was how Mary liked her morning brew.

  “Yeah?” Mary pried the cap off to let the steam out and cool it to a drinkable temperature. “Why’s that?”

  “Mrs. V. sent you here to change everything. Career, life trajectory, and love. And I know how it’s going to happen.”

  “K.” Mary blew across the surface, then breathed in the rich aroma.

  “I walked by the hotel a block up. They’re having an open mic tonight. I went in and signed us both up. I’ll sing, and you’ll do your standup act. Someone’s going to be in the audience, think you’re funny as hell, and put you on tour. Then, you’ll be the comedian who gets laid by some fabulous guy that you hit it off with, and you fall in love and have the kind of supportive, amazing life partner you deserve.”

  “I wouldn’t mind getting laid. It’s been a dry spell. I don’t even need a tour contract.”

  “I hear you,” Deidre said. “It’s been a bit of a dry spell for me, too. We’re talking Sahara dry spell. And frankly, I’m over it. I wouldn’t mind enjoying someone’s company while I’m here in Tallinn.”

  “K. If someone’s in the room having fun, let’s make sure to hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and send a text. No all-nighters.”

  “Right. In and out. Get it done. Buh-bye.”

  Mary laughed. She knew neither of them was going to sleep with a damned stranger in Tallinn, Estonia. “Well, at any rate, I’m down for all that. From your mouth to god’s ear.”

  “Yeah? So you’re game?” Deidre asked. “It’s your birthday day. And it was your chart reading. I don’t want to step on anything here.”

  “We can always change our minds, right?” Mary shrugged, then touched her lips to the cup to test the coffee.

  “Not always,” Deidre said. “But yeah, sure, in this case, we could bail.”

  “Speaking of bailing,” Mary set her cup down. “My muscles aren’t great after the ski adventure yesterday. If I’m going to have my life changed on a dime, I’m going to need some muscle cream or something. The desk guy said there’s a pharmacy up the street in the old city. I’m going to leave you here with my coffee while it cools. I’ll be five, maybe ten minutes.”

  “Yup.” Deidre leaned her head back, resting it on the trunk behind her. “I’m just going to enjoy the morning sun on my face and relax. Take your time.”

  Rounding the corner, the walk was exactly as the front desk guy had described. She spotted the pharmacy sign up ahead.

  Mary’s whole body braced when she suddenly saw a chair go flying through the air and bounce on the cobblestones. A crowd of people gasped and cried out.

  She was running toward the billowing smoke.

  She sprinted past people lining sidewalks, glass shards twinkling thickly from the street.

  A massive man in that same uniform as she’d seen in the airport minutes earlier was on the flagpole. He was too huge. From her distance, Mary could see that as he went up, the flagpole slowly leaned under his weight.

  He slid back down again.

  Now, the team was trying to get up the side of the building, scaling from window to window. They were right. Without equipment, if they were making a rescue, it would have to happen from the exterior.

  Leaning her head back to find the victim, Mary’s gaze caught on the balcony.

  Two boys.

  Two baby boys.

  Mary’s mind did some kind of crazy jujutsu move, and those babies' faces were her boys'. That was Kyle and Kaleb. Her kids. Hers. She had to save them.

  Her head swiveled frantically for a way to fly to their side, and her gaze landed on the pole. She didn’t weigh as much as that man did. And she had been taking classes; she knew how to climb a pole. She could get to her boys.

  There was a sensation in her chest of immense power. Of strength. Of capability. Her whole being seemed to swell and shift, morphing into something she didn’t recognize.

  Powerful.

  She was powerful.

  The next thing she knew, she was next to the flagpole, toeing off her tennis shoes, flopping to the ground, yanking her belt open, and scrambling out of her pants and shirt. To climb the pole meant her flesh had to make as much contact as possible. The cloth would make her slide.

  And there she was, wrapping her legs, reaching her arms, gripping at the brushed metal surface.

  She was climbing toward the inferno. “Hang on, babies. Hang on. I’m coming,” she screeched up to them.

  Chapter Eleven

  In her dance class, three, sometimes four, was the number of times that Mary had been able to grab and pull her body up the studio pole. This was five stories. She knew these things in the back of her head. She also knew that unless someone with a big assed ladder showed up, the babies would die.

  They’ll die. They’ll die. The babies will die.

  When she leaned her head back, she still saw Kyle and Kaleb’s faces staring down at her—the same black curls and rosy mouths, but these were held wide and tight with fear.

  The pain of their anguish ground behind Mary’s sternum with excruciating force.

  Hitch breathing, she reached and pulled.

  Mary peripherally knew that the men in gray were working hard to get in place. She was aware of how one man climbed onto the teammate for added height, then reached for the sill and did a pull-up with inhuman strength. It was heroic. But ineffectual.

  Even if the guy who made it to the fourth floor had some Peter pan-like, “I can fly!” move up his sleeve, once up, what could that man possibly do to get the children down?

  What way did she have to get the children down, for that matter?

  Mary’s brain wanted to process, to form a plan. But there was something deep and primal driving her. She had no choice but to act. Maybe there was a strategy somewhere hiding in the thick folds of her gray matter, and it just hadn’t presented itself yet.

  She made it to the top. She was just under the flag now. Parallel to the balcony.

  There was a woman near the boys that Mary hadn’t seen before. Hope and despair etched her face as she wrapped her arms—streaked with black—around the boys.

  The heat was intense. The smoke filled Mary’s lungs as she squinted past the sting in her eyes.

  “Hey!” the man’s voice broke into Mary’s awareness. “Hey!”

  She was afraid that if she looked down, she’d understand that she clung to a flagpole five stories over a cement sidewalk. Mary kept her eyes on the boys. “What?” she called back.

  “I have bolt cutters and rope.”

  K. Those were important. Mary did a quick calculation. Should she slide down and try to reach them? Her stomach flopped, churning green bile that splashed into her throat. Yeah, that would be a no. “I need to get over on the balcony first.” And with those words, She realized just how far away she was from the ledge.

  And scarily, the only way to get from the pole to the balcony would be to reach as far as she could with her hands and lean as far as she could from the pole.

  She could do this. It was a basic pole sit. It was one of the first things she learned to do in her classes.

  “English?” Mary yelled to the woman.

  “Yes!” she yelled back, then coughed hard.

  “I’m going to reach my hand toward you. Listen to me. When my hand comes near you, grab my hand and guide it to the bar. I need to get a good hold of the bar. Tell me what I said.”

  “Yes. I do this. Grab your hand, help you hold to bar.”

  “Good.” Not good. Just yeah, the woman understood. Mary turned herself on the pole and kicked her legs up until they stuck out long in front of her, crossing her feet at the ankles, shifting to the side so the friction of her skin tearing against the metal would hold her weight. “Yikes,” she exhaled. Her chest tightened down. “Scary,” she muttered. How many times had she said that in class mere feet off the ground? Mary looked over her shoulder and locked in on the littlest boy. Kyle’s eyes looked pleadingly back at her.

  “I’m coming! I’m coming, baby. I’m going to get you!”

  Mary gripped the pole with one hand, pressing her hips up, pressing her toes down, creating a taut arc with her body. Her other hand extended long as she leaned backward into a pole plank. “Help me!” she yelled.

  Suddenly, her hand was grasped and gently pulled, her fingers forced over to wrap the bar.

  And now Mary was good and stuck.

  Literally stretched between the pole and the balcony, she had no other choice than to keep going.

  Her thighs screamed.

  Her survival brain screamed.

  The people beneath her screamed.

  And Mary wanted the silence and conviction of looking into her son’s eyes. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her boys.

  Even this.

  Gripping tightly with her right hand, Mary tried to force her left from the pole. But her brain bucked at the command. She’d been scared in pole class, too. So, she used that technique to motivate her body into action. “Don’t think, do. Don’t think, trust.” And as she said this, Mary heard two little voices screaming in terror, possibly in pain. That was all Mary needed to spur her into terrified action. With the first hand secure, Mary pointed her toes harder, arched her hips up higher, created as much friction as she could, then released her second hand from the pole, reaching with rigid fingers held wide toward the solidity of the security bars.

  Again, she was guided into place.

  The move was punctuated with a swell of gasps coming up from the street.

  Ignore them. Ignore everything. Get the babies.

  “Hold my wrists,” she called, and the woman complied with an iron grip. With a deep breath, Mary released her legs, swinging them hard to the right, using the sudden momentum to get her heel onto the wide lip of the balcony.

  Four little hands reached through the bars and clung onto her ankle.

  Using all her strength, Mary pulled and twisted to get her other leg there, too.

  The heat radiating out of the apartment door was searing. She pulled her elbow over her mouth and nose as scant protection from the acrid smoke.

  The little ones pressed into the bars, trying to get away from the heat.

  She was here. Now, what?

  “Tool Guy below me!” Mary called without looking.

  “How can I help?”

  “I need the bolt cutters.”

  “Ideas?”

  No good ones. “I’m going to hook into these bars and do a back bend. You’re going to find a way to get the cutters into my hands.”

  “Wilco.”

  Military. Okay, that made all the sense in the world.

  Mary had to scoot over as close to the wall as possible. And honestly, that was the scariest thing she’d done yet. She wiped her hands across her cotton sports bra. There, she threaded her legs through the bars and crossed her ankles. “Hold my legs down,” she told the woman, who then crawled up and sat on her feet, wrapping her arms around her calves to counterbalance Mary with her own weight.

  Mary couldn’t make herself lean back. The best she could do was squeeze her eyes shut and walk her hands down her body until she felt her hair fall straight down like it had when she was a child playing on the monkey bars.

  I’m here because I was sent here. I’m doing this because this is mine to do.

  Mary didn’t flail for the cutters. She merely hung there, arms doing the bidding of gravity. Hopefully, she was in proximity to the supply guy.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay.” She breathed the words out with each exhalation and pulled them in on each inhale.

  She was surprised when she felt rope tapping the back of her hand.

  “Put that between your teeth and curl up.”

  That was the most rational thing that had happened since her brain snapped, and she went full mother mode. Her bite clamped down on the roping; Mary put her hands behind her thighs and crunched herself up.

  The woman on the balcony reached and dragged Mary until she was sitting on the foot-wide ledge.

  The babies. It was too hot to survive near that fire. Their little faces pressed through the metal bars as they screamed and reached for the cool air outside. Mary pulled the rope and up came the lifesaving bolt cutters.

  So far, the metal wasn’t scalding her. She couldn’t imagine that would last for much longer.

  Between the two women and the ratcheting design, they were able to get two of the posts off, making a space wide enough for the boys to fit through.

  “How long is this rope?” Mary called down without looking.

  “What are you thinking?” the man shouted back.

  “I wind my end through a few of the posts for friction. The first kid gets a hasty.” She used the term for a way to secure a climber with a rope technique that wrapped the legs like a diaper. “You secure your end of the rope to something as a backup. Then I go backward, again to lower him to you. I can release the rope from the bars. You tether him in again. Then, you can lower him to the next guy and so on to the ground.”

  “How are you going to get the second kid down? That balcony is at risk. We don’t have time for that.”

  “Okay —” Mary had no plan B. “Ideas?”

  “One, untie the bolt cutters. Two, tie the rope onto the post for security. Three, lower the rope back to me, and I’ll send up three more lengths. That will be one for each of you.”

  “Okay!” Okay. He was rational and solid. Those were important things in this high-stakes crisis. Mary’s shaky fingers didn’t want to comply, but if she pushed her breath out in short bursts through rigid lips, she could get the job done.

  As she lowered the end of the first rope to the tool guy, Mary realized this breathing cycle was a Lamaze technique. Who knew that skill would come in handy two decades on?

  “Pull it up!” he hollered.

  Mary was grateful for the instructions. Clear, concise, no wobble. Actionable. Good.

  The promised ropes came up to her as she pulled. And there were carabiners that would make the process of attaching the children’s harnesses that much easier—that much more secure.

  Mary used one of the ropes around her waist to tie herself in. If she should slip, it would be bad, but she wouldn’t splatter her brains over the sidewalk.

  The mother held her smallest child still while Mary wrapped the rope around and around. She tugged and tested. “Good,” she told the mom.

  Straddling the newly opened space, Mary slid her legs between the next bars over. She positioned herself so that her knees would bend over the edge when she leaned back again. Even with her safety belt in place, the idea of going upside down again stopped her heart. Mary pounded a fist into her chest.

  In her pole classes, Mary had just advanced to the point where she was learning how to do inversions. Yes, she was new to these sensations. But if she could hang six feet off the ground upside down from a class pole with only the friction of her skin to keep her from falling on her head, then hanging like a kid on the monkey bars—no matter the height—should be no problem, right?

  “Rope secured?” Mary yelled.

  “Affirmative. Rope secured.”

  “Get ready,” she called down, but really, that directive was for herself.

  “Ready!”

  The kid with the rope tied around him must have just figured out what would happen because he freaked. While he clung to his mother, fighting and screaming, the mother forced one of his feet into Mary’s hand and then the other.

  The mother trusted Mary with this child’s life.

  Could she do this?

  Honestly? They had no choice.

  Very shortly, they were all going to die. So even if Mary dangled the child and dropped him. There were men along the way below who might grab hold.

  Doing anything now gave the child a better chance of surviving the next few minutes.

  And as if mirroring Mary’s thoughts, the woman said, “He’s going to die if you don’t go, the boys will die. Just go! Just do it!”

  Oh, man. This was the part of nursing that Mary hated most. It was the point when a mother stood over her child and looked her in the eye: this is my everything. My world is in your hands. I’m giving you my life when I hand you this child. I’m trusting you. Depending on you.

  When Mary had jumped on top of the gurneys, straddling an unconscious child so that she could bag while her fellow nurses ran them down the hall, moving the bed toward the critical care resources needed for survival, she’d been part of a team. The team was trained. They knew—or had a darned good idea—what came next. There was no team up here with her.