Making that moment the wrong analogy. Succeeding had, in the end, been under his control.
So it was more like his old swim buddy from BUD/S, Kev, whose chutes had gotten tangled in a HAHO jump and who had gone into a spin, probably lost consciousness—God, Chase hoped so—and plunged twenty thousand feet to his death.
Oh, fuck.
Sometimes, it would be really, really nice if some of his personal analogies for a ruined life didn’t involve an actual ruined life.
“I kind of like it,” he said low. “That this is the worst thing that could happen in her life. I’d like to keep it that way, you know? Makes me feel as if we’re fighting for a reason.”
“Yeah.” Jake kicked the flat rooftop and slanted him a curious, envious glance, the kind of glance Chase sometimes slanted at married buddies when he saw them hugging their wives and playing with their kids.
“Makes me feel strong,” Chase admitted, very, very low. “Like I screwed up about her jacket, but at least I got something else right.”
Jake contemplated the street below, his shoulders hunching a little, his mouth rather grim.
Christ, had Chase started talking about emotions? Jesus, even when she wasn’t around, this woman made Chase talk too much.
He flung himself across the next gap, just catching the edge of the roof with his toes and throwing his hands up to grasp the ridge of the roof before he could slide off, hauling himself up and running along the narrow ridge. Ian and Jake caught up with him a couple of rooftops over.
“Not a bad idea,” Ian said to Jake. “I’m not saying my idea, that we go see the Mona Lisa, was a bad one either, but I can see why this was on your short list.”
“A lot less crowded up here,” said Jake, the mountain lion. “Mark’s gonna kill us for going when he was busy arguing with those CIA idiots at the embassy. We’ll have to come back out.”
“Changes the whole dynamic when you don’t have to go shoot somebody,” Chase said. “And no gear.” Well, they probably all had guns on them somewhere, but no obvious gear that would get them arrested. “Kind of peaceful.”
They considered that peace for a moment, and then, almost in unison, all focused on the largest nearby gap between roofs—over two meters and with a six-floor drop. Nobody even had to talk about it. They were all going crazy, spun up for this mission and stalled while the head shed dithered over information. Chase wasn’t the only one capable of breaking into restaurants just to add a little interest to his life in these circumstances.
Elias dropped back beside them, with a rough sound of gravel, astonishingly light on his feet. “Having trouble keeping up?” he asked, green eyes glinting.
Yes, there might be just a tiny bit of rivalry between the French elite counterterrorist units and the U.S. black ops with whom they were currently in wary cooperation.
Ian took off immediately at the challenge, flying over the gap with efficient grace. Chase and Jake followed, and the four of them ran, jumped, rolled, slid, swung for a while, until the next flat rooftop invited a pause for breath. Damn, Paris looked beautiful up here. It looked exactly like all those movies, which was kind of amazing. Mostly by the time they got to go to beautiful places, those place were half-destroyed, often by their own side’s bombs.
Paris looked…well, Paris looked like Paris.
And we’re going to keep it that way, too. Fuck those bastards who want to destroy it.
“You started doing this when you were a teenager?” he asked Elias. “Playing on the rooftops like this?” Parkour.
Elias shrugged. “We didn’t have much money. It was kind of my way of owning the city.”
It was a pretty nice city to own.
We’ll always have Paris, some guy had once said. Chase was pretty sure it was a good thing for the world to always have.
“We’ll get them,” he said, firmly. Conviction meant everything. There was no room for doubt. They got their targets, period.
He believed it, the same way he had to believe in his ability to take that two-meter jump over a thirty-meter drop. No hesitation, no doubt, just do it.
Elias said nothing for a long moment, gazing at the streets below. Then, without any of that sardonic edge, just low and firm: “Thanks.” He met Chase’s eyes. “It’s nice to have you guys on our side.”
“Don’t mention it,” Chase said, meaning it. “Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys, okay?”
“Why?”
“I had a little visit I wanted to pay to that apartment over there.” Chase smiled and took a running leap to catch against a balcony.
***