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“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.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u76e07c34-3c1c-50d7-9c0b-70101ad21c0b)
JAMIE SCRAMBLED ONTO the front passenger seat and peered up. The helo was an MH-6 Little Bird—not here for sightseeing. Shite. Must have been on standby. Hired from a local military contractor? Hyland had to be desperate to throw that kind of resource at Samira.
He clapped a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Change of plans. Go straight to Saint Jude’s A&E, on blue. Make it look like a real emergency.”
“It will be unless you take your hand off me.” Andy flicked on the siren.
“And radio into the hospital. See if anybody I’d know is on duty.”
“You mean someone you have dirt on?”
“Preferably.”
“Great. So I just casually ask, ‘Oh, and is there anyone there who’s been fucked over by James Armstrong?’ and see how many dozens of hands go up?”
Shut it, Andy. Not in front of her. “Maybe a touch more subtle.” He gave Andy’s shoulder a double pat and pushed back between the seats. Andy got on the radio, the siren wailing.
Jamie had been gone five years. Most of his med school and hospital friends—not that they would use the word friends anymore, if they ever had—would have moved on, moved up. Even if they hadn’t forgiven him, they’d surely have forgotten.
Samira was staring at the roof of the ambulance as if she had X-ray vision. “On blue?” She lowered her wide brown eyes to meet his gaze.
“Lights on, top speed.”
She clicked her seat belt on. “You’re planning to outrun a helicopter?”
“Just the vehicles they’ll be directing. When you’re the bug about to go under the boot, best you can do is slip between the floorboards. Even they wouldn’t risk opening fire on a London Ambulance, not this close to Westminster, no matter how deep their contacts go here. They’ll want to keep it relatively low-key. We can play that to our advantage.” If the enemy knew the city, the Peugeot would already be backtracking to London Bridge to cross the Thames rather than waiting for the drawbridge.
“Vehicles. There are more than one?”
The ambulance swerved. He clutched an overhead handrail.
“Jamie, don’t think you have to keep anything from me, because of the...because of earlier. It’s the surprises that throw me.”
Her knuckles blanched where they gripped the seat belt. But she was right. She was tougher than her panic attacks might suggest. “I counted three cars when I was setting up to pull you out. We should assume there are more.” He made a point of keeping his tone casual and confident, like he had it all under control. And he did so far. More or less.
“I thought we were avoiding the hospital?”
“Just passing through. The place is a maze. We’ll lose them there and come up with another plan to get to your friend’s place.” He dropped volume and nodded toward Andy, who was straining to decipher the voice at the other end of the radio. “To the authorities, to Hyland, this all has to look authentic for Andy’s sake, like a real response to a nine-nine-nine call, like you just cleverly hoodwinked the system.”
“So he’s an innocent pawn?”
“A pawn, aye. Innocent, no.” Even so, Jamie wouldn’t leave his former crewmate in the shit again. Last time it’d been merely a lucky escape from unemployment—or worse. “As long as we keep ahead of the ground troops between here and the hospital, we’ll be fine.”
She nodded, buying his attempt at reassurance. He sure was good at sounding confident when really he had no idea. Maybe all that medical training was useful for something.
He checked his watch. The wave of Saturday night drunks and pill-poppers would have passed through the emergency department and the advance guard of sports injuries would be limping in. Not peak time but there’d be a few ambulances coming and going. If they timed it right, the chopper wouldn’t know which Merc to follow out of the ambulance bay—or know if Samira was still in it.
“Harriet Davies is the consultant on,” Andy said, ending his call. “You remember her?”
Jamie smiled. “Perfect.”
“Ah, shit, not her, too. Is there anyone you didn’t fuck over?”
Samira’s eyebrows shot up.
“He’s joking,” Jamie whispered.
They drove on, the engine alternating between a whine and a roar as Andy slowed and accelerated. Jamie watched for enemy vehicles as the landmarks flashed by, so familiar he could be stuck in a dream about his past—a Tesco’s supermarket, a redbrick church, squat terraced houses and dreary office blocks, graffitied rail bridges, the Shard jutting up like a great glass splinter. Still the same South London in the same grimy brick and concrete. But he no longer belonged.
Samira clutched the sides of her seat, evidently concentrating on regulating her breathing. In for four, out for four, in for four, out for four. For one all-too-short day—and night—he’d glimpsed the woman underneath that tight self-control, that reserve. Her speech was so precise she always seemed to be mentally scanning a dictionary. She held herself so straight—neck long, chin level—she might have been brought up under a ballet instructor’s whip. The kind of well-brought-up woman his mother would have approved of.
Huh. These days he was the man mothers warned their daughters about.
“We’re coming up to Waterloo,” Andy called. “We could try to lose them in the railway underpasses?”
Jamie narrowed his eyes, picturing the snaking street layout. “No, keep going. We wouldn’t be able to stay undercover long enough to fool them—we’re not exactly stealth in this thing.” From above, the ambulance roof was a high-vis yellow target. “If anything, it’ll just delay us while their ground forces catch up.”
Andy tsked. “Ground forces,” he muttered.
“We’re close enough to the hospital now—head straight there.”
“Yes, sir, Sergeant Major, sir!” Andy blasted the horn. “Do you have sergeant majors in your weirdo army, Jamie?”
“We just call them arseholes. You should join up—you’d fit right in.”
Jamie opened his rucksack. “Here,” he said, pulling out a black cap and passing it to Samira. “Keep it pulled d—”
“Down low, I get it,” she said, putting the wig back on and ramming the cap over top. She arranged the hair to frame her face.
He grabbed another cap from his bag and yanked it on. Tess had them all paranoid about who could be watching any CCTV feeds, legally or not. And no city did security cameras like London. Paranoia capital of the world.
But then, Samira would know more than most about surveillance, given her job. Former job. What had she called it? A forward-deployed infrastructure security engineer. It means I get paid to set up the most secure systems in the world and then get paid to hack into them. I have to constantly keep ten steps ahead of myself.
Aye, he’d always had a thing for the smartest woman in the room. They made his brain light up, among other parts, they made life interesting, they got him in trouble—good trouble and bad trouble. Next time he ran away to join a mercenary force he’d check first that it was unisex. Not that five years ago he’d had the luxury of options.
Samira retrieved her mirrored sunglasses from the floor and jammed them on under her cap.
“Are those sunglasses or hubcaps?” he said, shrugging on his bomber jacket. He left it unzipped for quicker access to his Glock.
A laugh, white teeth against plum lips and brown skin. He could almost feel a click in his brain as the reward center—the nucleus accumbens—lit up and the dopamine released. The rat getting the cheese. He frowned. Weird. That feeling—the warm, sweet buzz in his veins. It was the sensation he used to get when...
“You’re looking at me strangely,” she said, dabbing her nose and chin as if expecting to find the remains of breakfast.
He directed his gaze out the window, swallowing. The evidence might not pass peer review, but there it was, clear as an fMRI scan. The day he and Samira had given in to their insane attraction had left its mark on his brain, laid down a pathway of memories that were right this second tugging at him to seek that pleasure again, promising that if he just drew her to him and...
Resist.
“We’re nearly there,” he said, blinking rapidly. “Let’s swap rucksacks. Mine’s lighter.”
They rolled into the ambulance bay and pulled up alongside two other identical Mercs. Andy was home free. Now for Samira. The sooner Jamie got her to safety and left town, the better for all involved. Giving in to impulse was not something he did, not anymore.
“Cheers, pal,” Jamie called as he reached for the door handle.
“My pleasure,” Andy replied, sounding like he’d stepped in dog shit. “And do me a favor, James?”
“A favor? Thought we were even and you wanted to keep it that way.”
“Never contact me again.”
“Ah, still so fickle, Andy.” He pulled Samira’s rucksack on. “Okay, Samira. Stick close and let me do the talking.”
A glint of white on the road alongside drew his eye. His hand froze on the handle. The Peugeot, slowing, the blond guy looking from Merc to Merc. Shite.
“Jamie?” Samira had followed his gaze. Her breath shuddered. Crap. A panic attack now could be the death of them both.
The car rolled past and pulled up on the roadside, the passenger door swinging open before the wheels stopped. The angles of the parked Mercs would protect them from view but only for a few seconds.
Jamie pushed open the rear door and grabbed her hand. It was icy. “Out. Quick.” He slammed the door behind them and drew her to his side, his right hand hovering over his weapon. They skirted the bonnet of another Merc, dodged a paramedic holding a crying, struggling toddler and scooted in through the first of a double set of mirrored glass doors. They backpedaled a second while the second set opened. Behind them the blond goon’s head bobbed across the forecourt. Andy drove straight at him, forcing him to lurch backward, briefly cutting him off. They were definitely even.
Inside, the waiting room had been upgraded to something resembling a posh airport lounge. In the middle was a circular reception desk in a bubble of light. Jamie adjusted his path, scanning the faces of the staff.
“Jamie,” Samira whispered, tightening the straps of the rucksack on her back, “there’s a woman staring swords right at you.”
So there was. A tall, trim figure in a white shirt, a tablet in her hands, leaning back against the reception desk, looking noticeably less accommodating than the junior doctor he remembered. As they approached, he glanced behind. Beyond the mirrored glass, Blondie was checking the back of an ambulance.
“Looking well, Harriet,” he said.
“That’s because you’re no longer around.” Her gaze dropped to where his hand joined Samira’s and then rose to Samira’s face. What was that—pity? Whatever happened to jealousy? She clutched the tablet like it was a ballistic chest plate. “I assume you want something.”
“I need to borrow your security pass, just for five minutes. And quite quickly.”
She raised thin eyebrows. “And that doesn’t sound at all dodgy.”
“We’re passing straight through—I won’t touch a thing, I promise. There’s a guy following us. We have to lose him.”
“Is he a cop?”
“No.”
“What did you do to him? Maybe I should let him catch up.”
