Читать книгу A Risk Worth Taking - Brynn Kelly - Страница 11
ОглавлениеSAMIRA JAMMED HER fingernails into her palms—about the only body part she could move. Would they kill her straightaway or interrogate her first? She wouldn’t give up Charlotte or further incriminate Tess, if that was what they were after. She’d be as fearless as Latif was. You hear me, Samira? Fearless.
The gurney spun ninety degrees. The wheels on one side lifted, lurching her stomach into weightlessness. Shops and cafés rushed by. Her kidnappers kept their heads bowed as they plowed through the panicked foot traffic and rattled under an arch into a cloudy gray world. A redbrick facade rose up, curving in the visor’s distortion. They were taking her out a side entrance? A firefighter flashed past, in a yellow helmet. She cried out. He didn’t even slow. The gurney rattled and bumped over rougher ground, jolting her vision. Beside her, blue lights flashed against a red blur—a fire truck. Her breath hissed in fast pants, the mask heating. The sharp scent of warming rubber curled up her nose, itching the back of her throat. A siren screamed and waned, screamed and waned, louder and louder. Voices faded. The world took a dive.
The gurney slowed and the second paramedic—or whatever he really was—jogged out of her field of vision. She strained her head as far as the restraints and mask allowed. Where had he gone? Diagonal red and yellow stripes, flashing blue lights—the rear double doors of an ambulance, its number plate coated in mud, though the chassis gleamed.
This was well planned. Who would stop two paramedics loading a prone woman into an ambulance? She shouted but it came out a whimper. The double doors swung open. The men lifted the gurney and it clattered into the back of the vehicle, the first guy jumping in alongside. A bump, and the rear doors slammed, one by one. The driver’s door opened and shut, and beneath her the ambulance shuddered and rumbled. Her breath rasped like an asthmatic’s. Her arms tingled. Black spots dotted her vision.
No. Fight it off. Or let it go. Or whatever the hell she was supposed to do. The solution always seemed so logical when she wasn’t having an attack.
A siren bleeped and the ambulance moved. The guy guarding her fiddled with something beside her ear, his head angled to look out the rear window. Pressure lifted from her forehead, leaving a floating sensation.
“Bravo Victor Control, Bravo Victor Control, Bravo Victor niner-one, over.” The driver, speaking into a radio, in a northern English accent. Wait—was this a real ambulance? Tess had warned her that Hyland’s conspiracy had sucked people in from everywhere—but the London Ambulance Service?
As the ambulance rolled out, the guy guarding her drew away her mask, knocking her sunglasses off with it. She gasped cold air and went to scream. His hand clamped over her mouth, rough and dry.
On the radio, a reply crackled back. “Bravo Victor niner-one, Bravo Victor Control. Go ahead. Over.”
Her lungs caved. No need for torture—she was suffocating herself. She retched, her body shaking against the bonds like she was having a fit. Bravery? Who was she kidding? With his free hand, her assailant pulled his mask and beanie off and drew in a breath. Close-cropped brown hair glistened with sweat.
Jamie.
The blue strobe illuminated uneasy cobalt eyes as he bent over her, releasing her mouth and sweeping his hand down her arm to push up her coat sleeve.
Jamie.
He encircled her wrist with his fingers for a few moments, then deftly released her hands from the bonds. “Samira, you’re having a panic attack. We’ll get through it together, okay? Just like before.”
Before. Yes, last year, when they were escaping from Ethiopia.
“You want nitroglycerin?” the driver called. “I have tablets.”
“No need,” Jamie replied, his gaze pinning hers. He laid a hand on her upper chest, and another on her belly, over her coat. “Breathe out, Samira, every last puff of air.”
She widened her eyes. She didn’t have any air—that was the problem.
He patted her belly. “Okay, now let this fill, nice and slow.” He patted her upper chest. “Keep this still.”
Sure. Like breathing was that easy. She scraped in a breath, hyperaware of the slight pressure of his hands.
“Now, let it out, slowly—all of it, until there’s nothing left. I’ll breathe with you.”
She concentrated on his eyes—the flecks of brown in the blue, the creases in the corners, the way they angled down like teardrops—and focused on matching his breaths, calm and even, pushing his hand away with her belly, then letting it drop. Jamie? Here?
What did it matter how? Just—thank God. Pressure lifted from her chest. Her vision cleared. She sank back on the gurney, letting go of effort, crisp oxygen swirling in her mouth.
He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. “Okay now?”
“Yes and no.” Mostly, she felt like an idiot.
“They were onto you,” he said, quietly, his focus darting from window to window as he unstrapped her head. “I had to create a diversion, extract you before they could figure out what was happening. I’d forgotten about your panic attacks.”
Her stomach flipped in time with the rises and falls of his accent, taking her mind back to their last morning together, when she’d told him to leave—and he’d wasted no time or breath complying.
It hardly mattered now. “Was this Tess’s idea? She’s been arrested—I saw it on TV.”
“It was Flynn’s. We had to move quickly. Tess was tipped off that Hyland’s mercenaries were planning to have St Pancras surrounded. But then she got arrested, so we had no way of contacting you. I flew straight here from France. One of the other guys in my unit flew to Paris but he got held up and you’d already left—Texas, you remember him?”
“Awo—I mean, yes, the American... So, the smoke—that was you?”
“It was the best plan I could come up with at short notice. We use smoke grenades on exercises, for cover, so...”
“But won’t the police—?”
“As far as the authorities are concerned, the grenades will be dismissed as a prank by a couple of student protesters who escaped without detection behind a rather convenient smoke screen. A harmless gag, except for one poor tourist who had to be treated for...breathing problems.”
She patted her head, and pulled off the “hat” Jamie had forced on her—a brown wig. Hearing his voice again was unnerving after it’d been trapped in her head for so long. “I think that’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. You couldn’t have warned me?”
“No time, and no channel. I couldn’t just walk in and lead you out, with them watching. We used the masks for disguises and parked the ambulance in a security camera black spot.” He unzipped his jacket and tossed it on the front passenger seat. Underneath he wore a short-sleeved green shirt with epaulets, a coat of arms on the chest pocket. A real paramedic uniform? A tendril of a tattoo curled out from under a sleeve. Her pulse seemed to glitch as her memory filled in the rest of the mark. “It’ll take Hyland’s goons a while to put all that together, no matter what resources they have.”
She swallowed. “They have access to all the resources, according to Tess. Has something gone wrong, I mean, apart from the arrest? Charlotte...?”
“Is that your London contact? I don’t know.” He moved to the straps on her feet and began releasing them. Deciphering his thick accent was taking concentration, though just the timbre of it rolled through her chest and eased her breathing. “All I know is that I was the only one who could get here this quickly, so I was it.” It sounded like an apology, like he assumed he was the last man she’d want to see again. How wrong he was. “Flynn was sparing on details and obviously we’re needing to keep this operation contained, so...”
“This operation?” she said. “You’re making it sound even more terrifying.”
“Oh no, this is commonplace. We’re just couriers, yeah? Here to collect and deliver. Operation UPS. Angelito and Holly are trying to get away from some unpronounceable town in Eastern Europe but that’ll take a while. And Texas is waiting for a seat to come free on the Eurostar.”
Angelito. Flynn and Jamie’s capitaine, who’d helped her escape Ethiopia. “Holly...?”
“Angelito’s girlfriend.”
“She can be trusted?”
“She could come in pretty handy.” His brow creased. “I’ve been wondering how you were, where you were. Tess and Flynn assured me you were safe but wouldn’t say more.”
She inwardly winced. Was that censure in his voice? He’d made her promise to keep in touch. She’d crossed her fingers behind her back.
Call if you need me, he’d said, scrawling down his number as he’d stepped onto his train in a French town she could no longer name, to return to his base on Corsica. If you want me. I’ll come straightaway.
So many times she’d nearly relented, even once picking up a pay phone and dialing all but the last digit.
“They didn’t know where I was—it was safer for everyone that way,” she said. “I moved around a lot. And Hyland still caught up with me.” More than a year of being careful and it had very nearly been for nothing. “At least I assume the ambush in Tuscany was his doing?”
“Yes. You did well to get away.”
She sat up, blinking rapidly. “Does Hyland know why I’m in London, where I’m headed?”
“We’re certainly hoping not. But then, until a few hours ago we hadn’t expected all this, either. You might need to fill me in on the details of what we’re going to be doing. We’re picking up something?”
She liked the sound of “we.” But if Hyland’s thugs had her in their sights, what about Charlotte? “Awo, from Putney. I mean, yes. You might as well know everything.” She gave him a breathless rundown. God, there was a lot to explain—Tuscany, Charlotte, the postcard...
“Wow,” Jamie said, when she’d finished. “I hope this ‘gift’ will exonerate Tess and bring down Hyland.”
“So do I, but I honestly don’t know. This could all be for nothing.”
“Flynn seems to think it’s the only chance we have.”
“Dear God, don’t say that.”
The ambulance swerved. She grabbed the sides of the gurney. Jamie caught a yellow metal handhold.
“The ambulance,” she said. “How did you—?”
“Called in a...favor from a...friend.” He glanced at the driver, who was still on the radio. One hell of a favor. She caught the words assessing, respiratory and SOB.
“Did he just call you a son of a bitch?” she said.
A grin flickered across Jamie’s face. “SOB. Shortness of breath. But probably the other thing, too.”
“This is a real ambulance?”
“On a real callout. I used to be a paramedic in London, in another lifetime. Somebody—” His voice deepened with mock conspiracy, his pupils melodramatically shifting left and right. “Somebody called nine-nine-nine on a burner phone to report that a woman had stopped breathing at St Pancras. By...chance, this was the closest ambulance. A lone officer, as far as Ambulance Control was concerned, returning the vehicle to his station after a repair.” The ambulance slowed. “A happy coincidence all around, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’re going to a hospital? Jamie, that’s not a good idea. If anyone saw paramedics take me from the station, they’ll assume that’s where we’re headed. And there’ll be security cameras. My photo is—”
“Everywhere, I know. You’re an overnight sensation. But that photo does you no justice. And don’t worry—the patient is about to have a remarkable recovery and refuse transportation.” Jamie grinned, wrinkling the suntanned skin beside his eyes. God, that was a beautiful sight.
The siren bleeped and the driver accelerated.
“Recovery?” She rested a hand on her chest and swiveled, her legs dangling over the side of the gurney. Her backpack was by her feet. “I don’t know if we can be sure of that yet.”
“Happy to perform any medical procedure you need. Cutting people open is my favorite pastime.”
She smiled up at him. It was a relief to smile for real. To talk to someone. To not be alone. To be with...him. “You are joking, yes?”
He shrugged, his eyes not leaving hers.
Of course he was joking. He was ninety-five percent tease and flirt. It was the five percent that intrigued her, those flashes of frustration or concern that broke through the facade, like a solitary boom of thunder from a clear sky that left you wondering if you’d imagined it. “I didn’t know you were a paramedic.”
His eyebrows angled up. “To be fair, you don’t really know me at all.”
Ouch. “I...guess not.”
She did know for sure that he’d hold eye contact as long as she was game, like it was a challenge—or he was drilling into her mind and amused by what he found.
Deliberately, she turned toward the windscreen. You don’t really know me at all. The exact words she’d thrown at him that fall morning after he’d offered to stay. I know you want me to, he’d said. Coincidence, or did he remember that hideous conversation as clearly as she did?
The driver navigated onto a narrow street flanked by stone-and-brick buildings with sash windows and brave balcony gardens, all shrouded in a gaseous gray light. Near-leafless trees stretched up like clawed skeleton hands. Her breath had shallowed out. With everything that was going on, with everything she was processing, she didn’t need the kind of confusion that came from looking a charming, magnetic man in the eye for too long.
A branch scraped the ambulance roof. She shivered. Winter had set in prematurely here. Even after all her years living in North America and Europe—through most of her childhood, her teens, her college and university years, her twenties—the sight of bare-limbed trees chilled her. From the corner of her eye, she registered Jamie unbuttoning his uniform shirt.
More reason to look elsewhere. In the last year she’d assured herself that her memory was exaggerating the connection she’d felt with him. Right now, her mind and her belly and even her skin weren’t so sure.
He was right—despite one fateful week, ending with one fateful night, and one hideous morning—she knew very little about him. He was Scottish, a medic in the French Foreign Legion and in his early thirties, a little older than she was. And now she knew he’d been a paramedic, which wasn’t hugely revealing—in Ethiopia she’d watched him stitch a head wound with the precision of a master tailor. Maybe he was one of those friendly people you thought you knew when you really didn’t, a flirt you thought singled you out when he treated every woman like the only one in the room. As a medic and soldier, he was paid to be protective and observant. He was probably assessing her mental health when he looked into her soul like that—with good cause.
Her peripheral vision reported that he was down to a khaki tank. Don’t look. She caught a fresh scent, somewhere between mint and pine, weighed down with something spicier, like cinnamon. Had he smelled that way in France? Something tweaked low in her belly, like her body remembered even if her mind didn’t.
She shook her head slightly. She had bigger things to think about. Like mercenaries. Mercenaries. Wow. She was trained to deal with virtual problems, not real ones. If Jamie hadn’t got to her first...
“Mate,” called the driver, looking in his side mirror. “Know anyone who drives a white Peugeot hatchback? I’m taking back streets, as you said, but he’s making every turn we are—and he just followed us through a red.”
Sure enough, a car was hugging their rear, with two people in the front—including a wiry blond man, talking on a cell phone.
“Oh no,” Samira whispered.
“You recognize them?”
“The passenger—he was on my train. And there was a guy with hair like that in Tuscany the other night but I didn’t get a close look. He seemed to be following me at the station. I told myself I was imagining it.”
“Looks like your instinct was right.” Jamie pulled out a chunky gray handgun. A holster was strapped to his side, over his tank.
“Oh my God. Where did you get that?” He couldn’t have flown into London with it.
He clicked something into place. “An acquaintance. Get down.” He raised his voice. “We need to lose him, Andy.”
The driver swore. “You’re still as much of a shit magnet as ever, I see.” He flicked a switch and the siren wailed. “Hold tight.”
Jamie stooped to read a street sign. Samira followed his gaze. King’s Cross Road. “Keep away from the markets. We get caught up in those and we’ll be stuck tight, siren or no.”
“Mate, you’re talking to the guy who didn’t run off and join the fucking Foreign Legion. I know every road cone this side of the Thames. I’ll loop round, head east.”
Jamie hauled a backpack from a cubbyhole and pulled something out of the front pocket. A phone.
Gripping the gurney with one hand, Samira caught his forearm. “We can’t make any calls. Tess said—”
“Tess is the world’s most paranoid woman. It’s a brand-new phone and I’m not making a call, just doing some Googling. I have an idea of how we could lose them.” He glanced at the car. “Besides, I think Hyland’s already onto us.”
The ambulance swung onto another street. She slid sideways, into air. With his spare arm, Jamie caught her around the waist and steered her onto a fold-down seat. The sight of his bare arms made her shiver all over again. Why was she the one breaking out in goose bumps?
“You might want to buckle up, Samira,” he said.
He swayed to the narrow gap between the front seats and spoke to the driver, swiping the phone. She dived for the seat belt. Between the siren, the straining engine and the thick accents, she couldn’t follow the conversation. Something about bridges and gates.
Behind them the blond man was still on his phone, his gaze fixed on the back of the ambulance as if he could see her through the one-way glass. Calling reinforcements? How many thugs did Hyland have in London? The Peugeot driver wore a cap low and a scarf high, with sunglasses bridging the gap. The car stuck to the ambulance like a water-skier behind a boat, skidding left and right as they weaved. The man nestled the phone between his shoulder and his ear and made swift hand movements in his lap. He lifted something, its black outline obvious for a second before it disappeared behind the dash.
“Jamie, they have a gun.”
“They what?” yelled the driver. The ambulance lurched sideways. “Shit.”
Jamie swiveled. “Flat on the floor, Samira.”
Gladly. She unclipped, and crawled onto the gray vinyl, Jamie crouching beside her, gun aimed down. His London acquaintances evidently occupied different social circles from her family’s. Through the windows, the tops of stripped trees and squat buildings flashed by—red brick, black brick, blackened stone, dirty concrete, steel and glass. The ambulance turned, tossing her against a row of cupboards. With one hand, she clung to the track anchoring the gurney. She cradled her other arm over her head—like that would stop a bullet. The ambulance jolted left and right, braking and accelerating like it was tossing in the surf. She swallowed nausea. At least there was no panic attack.
Don’t say “panic attack.”
The London she knew was a sedate place—dim lamps in hushed private libraries, leather back seats in purring black embassy cars, silver calligraphy on heavy card. Until now, her scariest experience was getting separated from her father in Madame Tussauds when she was eight.
Jamie checked his watch. “Eleven minutes,” he called to the driver.
“Until what?” Her words dissolved in the noise.
“GPS says there’s congestion on the one-way loop from Whitechapel,” the driver yelled. “If we approach from there, they should get neatly stuck.”
“Good,” said Jamie, planting a hand on Samira’s back as the ambulance swerved again. “Time it right and we can squeeze in just before the gates close.”
Gates? He was planning to hole up somewhere?
“And if we arrive a minute later we’ll be trapped,” the driver shouted.
“Well, don’t get there late.”
“What’s to stop them slipping in behind us?”
“Selfish bastard London drivers. Who’s going to let them through?” Jamie winked at Samira—like she had any idea what they were talking about.
“You’re assuming those same bastards will part for an ambulance.”
Doubt flicked across Jamie’s face, and vanished.
“Mate, can’t you just call in an air strike or tank assault or something?” said the driver.
“That’s plan B.”
The floor shuddered as the ambulance picked up speed. They were on a wider road, passing the blurred tops of trucks and double-decker buses. The siren wailed and waned. If the driver switched it off, it would surely continue in Samira’s head.
Jamie popped up to check the windows then knelt again. He thrust his phone at Samira. “Keep an eye on this. Tell me when you see the traffic stop.”
She juggled it, struggling to focus on the screen while avoiding sliding into Jamie. A live webcam was trained on Tower Bridge, its castle-like twin towers straddling a gray river. Cars and trucks stuttered across it as the stream buffered.
Outside, the gray light dimmed to charcoal—they’d driven into a tunnel, an underpass maybe. Fighting nausea, she pulled up to a sitting position, bracing her back against cupboards and her feet on the gurney, focusing on the traffic on the little screen. Everyday people going to everyday Sunday places—markets, churches, Christmas shopping, visiting a friend to collect evidence that would take down the future American president... Jamie crept between her and the blond’s gun. Had he deliberately given her a menial task to keep her from panicking?
The driver leaned on his horn. “I can’t lose this bastard. He’s careering like a maniac at Le Mans.”
“She,” Jamie corrected.
“What?”
“The driver’s a woman.”
“Whatever. Still a maniac.”
“That’s because she’s following you and you’re the worst driver in London.” Jamie dropped to a whisper and leaned toward Samira. “He’s the best, really. Totally mental.”
If Jamie’s humor was meant to keep her from freaking out, it wasn’t working—though at least her lungs were no longer panicking. Just her brain.
“I heard you, you know,” the driver called.
“They’re not firing at us,” she said to Jamie, sounding like a child needing reassurance.
“They’ll be waiting to corner us, waiting for reinforcements. If they create too much chaos we could slip away into it. Their job is to keep eyes on us while their team regroups and closes in—but don’t worry,” he added, quickly. “We’ll slip away, very soon.”
She tapped a fingernail on the screen. “Traffic’s stopped in one direction.”
“A couple of minutes,” Jamie called, rising a little to look out the windscreen.
“It’ll be tight,” the driver shouted. “Hold on!”
A stout cruise ship appeared on the screen, downstream of the bridge. Samira frowned. Tower Bridge...it was a drawbridge, yes? “Jamie, I think the bridge is about to lift.”
“That’s the general idea.”
She blinked twice. “You’re planning to jump it?”
“Now, there’s a plan.”
“Oh God,” she said. “All traffic’s stopped now.”
The driver slowed, honking and bleeping the siren. Her limited vision told her they were nudging through traffic across to the right-hand side of the road—the wrong side, here. The driver floored it. The engine whined like it was gunning for takeoff. What the hell? Through the windscreen, the crown of the nearest bridge tower came into view. Her quads burned with the effort of bracing against the gurney. To their right was a beige stone wall, studded with...arrow slits. Above it rose spires, circular towers, a Union Jack. The Tower of London. She’d been there once, with her mother. A very different trip.
“The gate’s closing,” the driver yelled. Underneath the wailing siren, another alarm sounded, high-pitched and wavering.
“Keep going,” Jamie said. “We have to get past. The Peugeot’s through the traffic but fifty meters behind.”
“It’s still closing!”
“They’ll open it,” Jamie called. Samira caught a slight movement at his side. He’d crossed his fingers.
“James? A few seconds and I won’t be able to stop in time.”
“Keep going,” Jamie said. “Trust me.”
The driver tooted again. “The Peugeot’s gaining.” Sure enough, the engine behind them was straining to a new pitch. More horns sounded.
Samira pulled herself onto the flip-down seat. She couldn’t not watch. Ahead, on the bridge, under a stone archway, a pair of pale blue gates spanned the road. The left-hand one was closed, traffic queued before it. The other was at a forty-five-degree angle and drifting shut. The ambulance wail morphed into a panicked shrill squeal. She hugged the back of the seat.
“Hold tight,” said the driver. “This’ll be close.”
Her eyes burned but she couldn’t blink. Behind, the Peugeot was keeping pace. Jamie crouched, clinging to a handhold, muscles tight from his hands to his neck. Shouts filtered in from outside, over the alarms and horns and engines. The tourists were getting a show. The ambulance lurched sideways. The driver yelled. Jamie’s gaze flicked to hers, as steady and calm as his jaw was tense. This was one time she wouldn’t break eye contact. He winked. Winked.
A thump. Her stomach lurched. A metal-on-metal screech—the side of the ambulance scraping against...the gate? But they were through. Behind them, the gate had stalled, almost closed. The Peugeot gunned it, its driver hunched. The gate lurched then swung shut. She winced, bracing for a crunch. The car fishtailed and pulled up sideways in a screech of brakes, smoke puffing from its wheels, maybe an inch short of crashing. The blond man whacked the back of his driver’s head, who spun toward him, evidently shouting, her arms flailing.
Samira leaned back in her seat. Blue and white cables streaked past the windows, then another stone archway like the yawning ribs of a whale, then the Thames, its concrete waters rippling around the prow of the cruise ship, which looked three times bigger than it had on the screen. On they sped, still with the alarm wailing, passing the second tower, more cables, another archway, a line of traffic... The exit gate was open. Tourists crowded against a barrier, a dozen phone cameras trained on the ambulance. A woman in a high-vis raincoat holding a walkie-talkie shook her head pointedly at the driver.
Jamie eased to standing. “They might have to dock that wee scrape from your pay.”
“Fuck you, James.” The driver flicked a switch and the siren stopped.
The silence washed through Samira’s head. She swallowed, trying to equalize.
“Can’t believe you’re still getting me in the shit,” the driver continued. “Thought I was well rid of you.”
Jamie grinned, meeting Samira’s eye and shrugging, as if he’d been given an embarrassing compliment. “Have you seen the bridge lift before, Samira? It’s an awesome sight.” He nodded at the view behind.
The road they’d just driven along was angling up, obscuring their view of the Peugeot on the far side of the bridge. The towers stood like rooks on a chessboard, closing in to protect their king. Was that her—the king on the chessboard, the defenseless target, able only to shuffle while the enemy swooped from all angles? What did that make Jamie? Certainly not a bishop. Too lithe for a rook, and he was no pawn. Which left a knight. Yes, the most agile of the pieces. He moved always with a liquid athleticism, at once at ease and on guard, both blasé about the possibility of a threat and capable of sidestepping it with a microsecond’s notice.
“We got away,” Samira said, breathlessly.
“Not quite yet. We bought ourselves a seven-minute lead but we’ll have to use it wisely.”
Her stomach dropped. “Only seven?”
“Should be enough. The streets are quieter this side of the Thames, on a Sunday. Once we get some miles between us and grab a black cab—out of view of the CCTV cameras—we’ll be gold. And my friend here will be on his way, indistinguishable from all the other ambulances working central London. As far as our enemy is concerned, we’ll have donned invisibility cloaks.”
She swallowed. “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”
He fished in his backpack and pulled out a pale green sweater. “Why not? Could be fun. And the Legion is nipping my hide about my unused leave, so...”
“This is not my thing, this James Bond stuff.”
“To be fair, it’s not mine either. I’m a medic.”
“You’re a soldier, too.”
“Sure, but I try to do as little fighting as possible. I prefer fixing people to shooting them. Sometimes these days I end up doing both. Just making work for myself because that’s the secret to job satisfaction, right—digging holes and filling them in?”
She couldn’t help smiling. He really was her polar opposite. Still, a man composed enough to make jokes while fleeing bad guys was a man she wanted on her team.
“James,” she said, trying the name on for size.
As he shrugged the sweater on, a frown crossed his face. It was gone by the time his head emerged from the neckline. The joker in him, the charmer, the flirt—that part was a Jamie. But the hidden part that made his eyes look twice the age of the rest of him—that shouldered too many secrets for a Jamie. That was the James. Serious and aloof, with shifting depths.
“I haven’t heard you being called anything but Doc.” He hadn’t told her his real name until they’d kissed, that day by the river—and even then it didn’t come with a surname.
“It’s been a long time since I got called anything else.”
“What does your family call you?”
That flash of darkness. “All sorts of interesting names, I imagine.”
“But what do they call you to your face?”
“Probably the same things they’d call me behind my back, which is why I’m not game to find out.”
She couldn’t imagine anyone disliking him. She mentally replayed their first meeting in Ethiopia—when he’d arrived with his commando team to rescue Flynn from terrorists, and ended up rescuing Samira—their escape to Europe, their week in France. Had he told her nothing about his family? She would have remembered. “You’re not in contact with them?”
The side of his mouth twitched—and not in jest. “Haven’t seen them for three years.”
A dull thudding beat the sky above. His forehead creased.
“Ah, James?” The driver leaned forward, squinting up through the windscreen. “You know any good reason for a military helicopter to be circling us?”
Jamie swore under his breath.
“I’m thinking we might need your plan B after all, mate,” the driver said.
By the look on Jamie’s face, Samira guessed he didn’t have one.
