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A few minutes later they stepped outside. He tucked in a label jutting from her coat collar. On her nape, above the scarf, a sliver of skin goose pimpled. Don’t go doing that to me now. He opened the umbrella.
“Jesus, I’ve seen dinner plates bigger than this,” he said, looking up. “Can you hold it while I keep an eye out?” He swung her to his left, anchored his arm around her waist and pulled their hips flush, gratified by her tiny gasp. “We’ll walk to that gate, nice and smooth.”
They set off, awkwardly, given their height difference, Jamie hunching to fit under the umbrella. It always took a while for a couple to settle into a stride. Not that he remembered what it was like to be in a relationship where you strolled arm in arm. And not that he and Samira were a couple or ever would be—he’d broken enough hearts attempting a regular life, and hers was scarred enough already. Even through her coat he could feel her suppleness, his fingers moving as her hips swayed. Wasn’t often he missed relationships...
He pushed open the gate into a northwesterly blast and ushered Samira out. The bear with the paper bag lumbered past, head bent against the drizzle, breath labored, face as gray as the pavement. A jogger approached from the other direction. The path was otherwise deserted. As the gate locked behind them, Jamie coaxed Samira around to head south. They were channeled in by the wall but a canopy of trees still clinging to amber leaves provided air cover, and the shower gave them an excuse to huddle close and walk fast. A cluster of tourists in raincoats rounded a bend, some taking photos of Westminster. He clutched her tighter, skirting to one side of them. Fat drops of rain unleashed, blurring everything into gray.
A stout dark-haired man pushed through the tourists, scanning from person to person, hand inside his coat. Shit. One of the goons who’d been waiting for Samira’s train. He’d paid no heed to Jamie at the station but he’d know Samira’s face.
Jamie angled her to face him, planted a hand on each of her cheeks and drew her close, laughing as if she’d whispered something suggestive. As he sensed the enemy glancing their way, he lowered his head and did the only logical thing. He kissed her.
She went rigid.
Don’t pull away. Trust me. Between his hands and his lips, he was covering the only identifiable part of her. All the guy would see was a brunette in heels and a blue coat.
She took the hint and relaxed against him, pulling the umbrella low over their heads and sliding her free hand under his bomber jacket to the side of his waist. He bore down to stop from flinching. Oh man, he shouldn’t be getting a full-body reaction from that but there it was, as strong as a year ago—the nerves firing from his lips to his toes and back up...
The tourists passed and he released her lips, keeping his hands in place and touching his forehead to hers while taking a read from the corner of his eye—and catching his breath because...damn. The goon had moved away with the group, toward Westminster Bridge. The bear was lumbering the other way. Jamie dropped his hands.
“Oh my God,” Samira breathed.
“I’m sorry. There was a guy, from the station. It was the only thing I could think of.”
“Eshi. I mean, don’t apolog—” She touched her lips with two fingers. He yearned to do the same. “It’s fine.”
Fine.
Fine.
Fine wasn’t the reaction he normally shot for when he kissed a woman. Goddamn, those lips were just as smooth as he remembered. And insistent. And he’d remembered her a lot since—
Movement, to the south. The bear had tripped and was falling like a tree. No, not a trip—he was clutching his chest. He landed with a smack, his arm bouncing lifelessly on flagstones.
“Shite,” Jamie said, taking a step. The goon had turned, watching. “Samira, I can’t not...”
“Of course. Go.”
“Come with me.”
Jamie sprinted to the guy and shoved two fingers to his throat. Rain peppered his gray face. No carotid pulse. Fuck. Not breathing, either. He laid the guy flat, unzipped his coat and pulled it aside. His sternum was still.
“Has he been shot?” Samira said as she caught up.
“No. He’s a heart patient. Went down clutching his chest, grimacing. Has to be a heart attack.”
“CPR?” Samira said, holding the umbrella over them, her voice tight.
“I can go one better.”
“What do you mean?”
“A precordial thump. Jump-start his heart. Not standard hospital procedure but the indications...” Jamie clenched his right fist and held it above the guy’s chest, mentally measuring the gap. Twenty centimeters, right? “Okay,” he whispered to himself. “Go.” He smacked the side of his fist onto the guy’s lower sternum then snatched it away. The guy jumped, twitched—and lurched up, eyes wide, like a dead man coming out of the grave. Which he pretty much was. He scraped in a breath and clutched Jamie’s arm.
“Fuck,” Jamie said. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Shite, now what? They couldn’t get him back into the hospital through a locked gate. They couldn’t leave him. They’d have to wait for a passerby they could send for help.
“Jamie, that thug,” Samira murmured. “He’s coming.”
He was coming, all right, and at a fair clip. No gun drawn but his eyes were narrowed at Samira. Crap. It’d confirm his suspicions if Jamie and Samira took off. And a shoot-out was best avoided. The priority was to get Samira out of there. Then deal with the goon. Then the bear. Triage, basically.
“Quick, Sa—s—sweetheart,” he shouted. “You’ll have to go for help. This guy needs a resus team, quick. I’ll boost you over the wall.” He lowered his voice. “Go straight to Mariya. Hide somewhere near her desk and I’ll come for you when I’ve sorted out this goon.”
Before she had time to think, he pulled her to the wall and linked his hands in front of him, ready for her foot. Rain sluiced his face. He blinked hard. Behind him, the bear groaned.
“Now, sweetheart!” he shouted. “Go!”
Samira puffed out her cheeks and put the ball of her shoe into his hand. “I don’t know how to do this—jump like this.”
“It’s easy. I’ll hoist you to the top. Just be careful jumping down—bend your knees. One, two, three.”
He heaved, and she caught the edge of the wall and pulled herself up. One of her heels fell, and Jamie caught the shoe before it took out his eye. She slipped the other shoe off and disappeared, grunting as she landed on the other side. It felt wrong to let her out of sight, even for a minute.
He swiveled, hand hovering by his holster. The goon had gone. Shit. The bear hoisted himself to a sitting position.
“What happened to that guy who was running for us?” Jamie said. “Did you see?”
“Nah, sorry. Bloody hell. What just...? Did I...? Are you a doctor?”
“Your heart stopped.” Jamie ran to the low wall separating the path from the river and looked over. Stones, rubbish, water... The goon had to have gone after Samira.
Gunfire rang out—muffled potshots from a pistol, over the wall. Then the echoing whine of an approaching helicopter.
Shit. Samira.
CHAPTER FIVE (#u76e07c34-3c1c-50d7-9c0b-70101ad21c0b)
THE HELICOPTER SWUNG out over the wall, to the north. Gunfire popped. Beside Jamie, the glass dome of a streetlamp smashed. Bullets plinked along flagstones. He sprinted for the hospital wall, sheltered from view by the spindly canopy.
“Sorry,” he yelled to the bear. “I gotta draw their fire away.”
“Might be an idea,” the guy said, shakily. He had to be wondering what alternative world he’d been resurrected into. Just keep breathing, pal.
“I’ll send help. Just...take it easy, relax.”
“Relax. Sure.”
The shooters weren’t door gunners, just guys with assault rifles. Not as precise.
More ground fire, over the wall. An alarm wailed, echoed by another, farther off.
Jamie found a foothold and launched over the wall, under tree cover. As he landed, he skidded on wet leaves. No sign of Samira or the gunman. He’d royally fucked that up. Once in a while the first idea wasn’t the best idea... The smokers’ door was banging in the breeze. Don’t latch. Don’t latch. He peered up through the branches. He’d have to cross open ground but better that than the chopper spraying the trees and taking out the bear.
He launched into a sprint, pumping his arms, dodging cars, breathing hard. Gunfire plinked into steel, punched asphalt. As he bounded up the concrete steps, a gust swept the door. It latched. Shit. He hammered on it, turned, flattened, drawing his weapon—not that a Glock would take out a helicopter. The chopper veered toward him. He released the slide. A dozen alarms and sirens clashed.
The door fell away behind him. He stumbled back.
“Fuck me.” Mariya stood, hands on hips. “Is that a gun?”
Gunfire hammered the porch, tearing through the awning. Jamie pulled the door shut and shoved Mariya farther inside.
She shook him off. “Are you a good guy here or—?”
“Where’s Sa—?” he said. “Where’s my friend?”
“She ran down the corridor.” Mariya pointed. “Some guy followed her. He fired a fucking gun. I called security but they’re not here yet.”
Shit. Without an access card Samira would have run into a dead end. Jamie grabbed Harriet’s pass from the counter and looped it around his neck.
“Get out of sight and stay down,” he ordered. “Away from windows.”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Mariya called as he rounded the corner of her desk and scoped out the corridor. Long and empty. At the far end, one of the double doors into Occupational Therapy hung open. He ran silently along the wall, gun down, pulse cranking, checking the empty bays either side. At the double doors, the security panel had been shot to pieces. A crackly voice sounded over the hospital loudspeaker. “The hospital is on full lockdown. Proceed directly to a refuge, as indicated by staff. Do not enter or leave the premises. This is not a drill.”
From ahead, a man’s voice trickled in over the recording and the alarms. A one-sided conversation, though Jamie couldn’t make out the words. On the phone?
He peeped between the doors. Nobody in view. Occupational Therapy would be empty on a Sunday. He took a longer look. The admin station was in an alcove halfway down the narrow wing, opposite a deserted waiting room. The guy had to be in there. With Samira? Jamie edged through the doors.
“...no idea where the fuck I am,” the guy was saying, in an American accent. “Place is a fucking maze. There are treadmills and shit in here—some hospital gym? I’m looking out a window at a courtyard with a tree in it... Yeah, I know that’s not very fucking helpful. Can’t you track me from the GPS on the phone or some shit?”
A window blind rattled. Jamie quietly lowered the rucksack to the floor.
“Why don’t I just shoot her and then the problem’s solved?”
Jamie’s forehead prickled. As he inched closer, he heard—or imagined—Samira’s breath wheezing in time with the ebb of the siren. He ran his gaze around the ceiling. No security cameras. He couldn’t count on help being forthcoming—and even if it was, Jamie could well end up taking a bullet.
“Hang on, man. She’s having a fucking fit or something.”
A clatter. Gasping.
“Lady, this better not be some trick... Nah, serious, man, she’s going purple. She ain’t breathing. What do I do? Well, someone’s gotta make a decision here! Where’s Fitz?”
Jamie exhaled and inhaled, like he was trying to do it for Samira. She would be fine. Terrified, of course, but nobody died from a panic attack. He pictured the goon’s position from his voice—looking down at Samira on the floor, facing the window? Gun in right hand, phone in the other? Doubly distracted.
“If Fitz is gonna interrogate her he better get here quick... No, I don’t fucking know CPR. Hang on. I gotta put the phone down a sec.”
Jamie launched around the corner. The guy looked up, fumbling to adjust his grip on a pistol. Jamie leaped, shoved the gun aside, wheeled and smacked his elbow into the guy’s forehead. The goon staggered back but gathered control of his weapon, swiveled and aimed it at Jamie’s forehead. Not so smooth, caporal.
Something blue flew across the alcove and clocked the side of the goon’s head. The impact rippled through him. He tipped sideways into a desk and crumpled onto the floor. What the fuck? A hand weight rolled off the desk and thudded onto the guy’s side.
“Oh my God, is he alive?” Samira’s voice, to Jamie’s right, barely audible over the alarms. She was kneeling in a corner, gray-faced, eyes huge. Over the loudspeaker, the recorded message repeated.
Jamie kicked the guy’s weapon across the floor. “You threw that weight?”
“It was sitting right there. It looked like he was going to... I didn’t think. Is he...? Did I...?”
Jamie checked the guy’s vitals. “Little groggy but okay. What happened to your panic attack? Were you faking?”
“No. But then I saw you and then the weight, and somehow I pushed through it.”
A tinny voice sounded. Merde. Jamie held a finger to his lips, and located the goon’s phone on an office chair. Still on. He picked it up, settling his breath.
“Nah, I’m okay. I’m fine,” he shouted, in his best imitation of the guy’s accent, muffling his voice with his hand. “Just some fucking security guard. Knocked him out cold. Listen, there’s some paperwork sitting here, says I’m in the...” Jamie stared at a concrete courtyard. What was on the far side of the building? “The...gynecology outpatient clinic. Shit, someone’s coming. I gotta go. You better get here, quick.”
Jamie hung up. The goon groaned. Jamie retrieved his rucksack, and drew out a syringe and vial from his white box of goodies.
“What is that?” Samira said, grabbing her sunglasses from the floor beside her.
“A sedative. Keep him in a happy place a while longer.” The guy wouldn’t be able to give much of a description of Jamie, especially with a concussion, but the longer they kept him quiet, the better.
“Where did you get it?”
“Would you believe a prescription?”
“No.”
He laughed.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You have a contact?”
“Traditional weapons are a little harder to come by here and a few people owed me—”
“Favors. I’m beginning to see a pattern.”
Not that this favor had come cheaply. Andy had charged him top dollar. But at short notice, with limited access to real firepower, Jamie needed every advantage he could think of. And if there was one weapon he knew how to wield...
After injecting the guy, Jamie tucked him into a bed in a private room in the evacuated orthopedics ward next door. Samira relieved him of a clip of pounds in his pocket.
“I wish they’d shut off that fucking siren,” Jamie said as they left the room, closing the door. “We’d better get out of here before security arrives—or this guy’s buddies. I’m afraid we’ve lost your shoes, Cinderella. You might want to put your boots back on.”
“I have an idea how we can get away,” Samira said a minute later, as she zipped up the boots.
“All ears.”
She led him back to Occupational Therapy. “There,” she said, pointing to a display box fixed to a wall. Inside, two dozen keys hung on nails. A sign read OT Pool Cars. Sign the log BEFORE you take a key. Return with a FULL TANK. NO exceptions.
“Crumbs, Samira! Are you suggesting we steal a car?”
“Just...borrow.” She stepped back, abruptly. “You’re right. What am I thinking? It’s a terrible idea.”
