Mike sighed. “If you start lying, then you’ll be forced to keep doing it. You just risk endangering all that you’ve achieved in your life. What for? I’ll get by, as always.”
“What if I leave everything? What if I don’t go back at all?” The thought of making a clean sweep of her existence, for the second time, enticed her. She’d struggled to shake off the past, but she hadn’t really succeeded. It had kept tormenting her.
“You aren’t cut out to live like a ghost,” he stated.
“I could learn. You could teach me!” Oh God, had she just proposed to him that he took her with him? He would insult her now. She turned to the window, hoping that he would decide to ignore her last comment.
All that she heard was a whisper, followed by a long silence. “You have to hold on to your life, since you have one.”
“My life sucks.” That sentence had exited her mouth without control. Her life sucked; after her son’s death any attempt to straighten it out again had been useless.
But that statement was welcomed with a sarcastic laugh. “Your life sucks? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Yeah, perhaps he was right. This wasn’t the right moment to judge her own life. She was exhausted, physically and psychologically. Yet the thought that the adventure was coming to an end caused her a deep sadness. She felt she was on the verge of missing an opportunity.
“Once I had a different name. I was someone different.”
For a split second Amelia thought she’d dreamt those words, but then she realised they were coming from Mike. She turned to him, interested. However, he kept looking through the windscreen, as he was driving in the darkness. She tried to follow the line of his sight. How could he orient himself in this place? “And who were you?” she asked, instead.
He barely raised the corners of his mouth. “When you asked me whether I was an MI6 spy, you weren’t so far off.”
Was he really confiding in her? Amelia held her breath.
Mike slowed down as he took a bend in the country lane they were travelling along. “I used to be a CIA operative agent.”
“Are you American?!” Not that she had any particular talent in recognising the nationality of people, but that revelation was completely unexpected. “You don’t have an American accent.” What a stupid thing to say.
Mike chuckled. “Us spies, we’re quite good with accents.”
Indeed, she’d said something stupid. Actually, she’d just taken for granted that he was English. She’d always had the bad habit of taking things for granted. “And what happened then? How did you come here?”
“I died in Afghanistan.”
Eh?
“My beloved country supposed I was dead.” Bitterness veiled his voice. “When you start with this job, you know it can happen. I was captured and tortured during a mission.”
Recalling his scars sent a shudder right through Amelia’s spine. However, he was talking about it in a detached fashion, as if it was something he hadn’t really lived through. But those signs on his body demonstrated the opposite.
“Sometimes over there, you must take the initiative, and it happens that a great deal can go wrong. And then you’re alone.”
“Didn’t they try to find you?” Another stupid thing to say, but she didn’t like to keep silent. She was feeling such pity for him. Who knew what he had gone through over there. He’d had to see, no, feel the real horror on his own skin. Now she wasn’t surprised anymore about his coldness when he took a life with his own hands, or about the fickle way he behaved.
“Apparently, they didn’t try enough.” He sighed. “At a certain point I implored any God who existed out there to let me die,” he continued, in a low voice. “And I believed I was dead. When I woke up my legs and arms were broken, and I had a gunshot wound in my chest.”
Instinctively Amelia tightened her hands together and moved them closer to her body.
“Yasir found me in an abandoned encampment. His family took care of me. They lived in an isolated area on the mountains. I don’t even know how I ended up there. I spent many months with them, had started to appreciate their simple life, had toyed with the idea of staying there forever.” He smiled in the half-light.
The sky outside had become less dark. The first lights of dawn were making their way through the fronds.
“Yasir had a sister, Jala. I was a bit in love with her.” His smile became even larger. She could glimpse again the charming man who had made her fall head over heels. But something suggested to Amelia that the story didn’t have a happy ending. A moment after, his gaze clouded over, but he said nothing.
“What happened?” She could figure it out, but felt a morbid desire to learn the details.
“We’d been away the entire morning. When we returned to the farm, we found it on fire. His wife, his two children, and his sister had been trapped inside.”
“Oh my God …”
“We never knew what had happened exactly, but …” His voice broke; he hesitated. Amelia thought she’d seen a teardrop on his face. Mike brushed it with his fingers, in a nervous gesture. “I think it was because of my presence. It had made someone curious, the wrong people.”
She reached out to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. She would’ve liked to say something to console him, for instance that it wasn’t his fault, but that would be just more nonsense. Probably he was right. Anyway nothing that she could say would be of help to him. But a pleasant warmth had ignited in her chest. He had confided that story to her spontaneously. He certainly didn’t tell it to just anyone he met. She felt privileged, close to him. She would’ve liked to ask him how they had come to London, to do what they did, but it didn’t matter in the end.
She felt her fingers being touched. Mike had released the steering wheel with one hand and placed it on hers, for a moment, slowing down a bit. Then he returned to concentrate on the road.
A glare on the side mirror drew Amelia’s attention. She turned to look back and her safety belt ended on her neck, as usual.
“What’s up?”
“I think I’ve seen a light.” She had managed to move the safety belt under her shoulder. Now she was searching in all directions. The sky had become an even lighter blue. It was possible to distinguish it from the woods, which were becoming sparser. It had to be covered, because she couldn’t see any stars. There was no moon. But she hadn’t dreamt that glare; well, maybe.
The engine’s sound became louder. Mike was opening his window and checking the rear-view mirrors at the same time.
“Can you hear it, too?” Amelia asked. There was another noise out there, a humming, actually a set of distant hums.
“Motorbikes, at least two.”
“What do we do?”
“The light is increasing, they will see us.” He hadn’t answered her question, but from the expression on Mike’s face, she understood that he was formulating a plan. “They have more flexibility than us.”
Amelia pulled out her gun from her belt, even if she wasn’t sure how to use it in that situation.
“Here they come.”
She turned again and saw them: three lights. “Fuck.” They were coming closer.
Mike turned on the headlights and stepped on the accelerator. His window started closing.
Amelia felt herself being pushed against her seat, but since she was sideways on, her cheek hit the headrest and her neck bent more than it should. “Fuck,” she reiterated. She grabbed the holder over her door, but at each recoil due to the bumpy terrain, at high speed, her body was pushed in all directions and the belt seemed to penetrate her flesh.
The humming became closer. She heard a gunshot. She lowered her head. Another gunshot.
“The car is armour-plated, their bullets can’t enter.”
A sense of relief pervaded her, as she straightened on her seat. They were in a bigger vehicle, impenetrable. The others could chase them, but couldn’t take them. All of a sudden the car swerved.
�
�And so they’re aiming at the tyres.” Mike had started zigzagging, but that was slowing them down. The lights in the rear-view mirrors were becoming closer and more menacing.
A bullet lodged on the window beside Amelia, who moved back in surprise. A web of cracks branched out from the impact point, but the glass didn’t break. She turned backward. A motorbike was coming up beside them. She could see the figure of the man riding it. He was wearing a helmet. Another man without a face trying to put an end to her life.
Their vehicle braked. She was projected forward, but her safety belt did its job once more. Then Mike steered to the left. The car’s side hit the motorbike. Amelia’s gaze followed the fall of the other vehicle as long as she could. “One down!” she exclaimed triumphantly.
Her partner looked much less enthusiastic. “He will stand up again; I haven’t hit him hard enough.”
Another bang, this time from the opposite side of the car. The latter started to pull to the right. Mike accelerated again, making it move once more in a straight line. The engine struggled to fight against the resistance of the terrain and the slight slope. The lights were moving away again.
All at once the vehicle turned to the left and then he steered in the opposite direction, making a ninety degree curve, which brought them out of the path and into the middle of the trees again, where they were thicker.
After a few seconds he counter-steered in the opposite direction and turned off the headlights. Then he came to a grinding halt.
Dazed by all those changes of directions, Amelia placed a hand on her head. “What …?”
“Ssshhh!” he commanded her, putting a finger on his own mouth.
As she looked out, she noticed they were surrounded by bushes; they had squeezed in between them. Everything around them was dark. She could still hear the humming from the motorbikes, but couldn’t see the lights anymore. They were hiding. How long could they succeed?
The familiar noise of the winder motor made her turn to Mike. He had opened the window, perhaps to hear better. The motorbikes sounded as if they were moving away. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of that to get out of there?
A spasm at her right hand reminded Amelia that she was still holding her gun tightly. She loosened her grip and put it on her lap, then she turned to him as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t dare speak. He had gestured her to be quiet and perhaps it was a good idea to obey him. Not because she had resigned herself to do whatever he said. Definitely not. Maybe just for a while. Well, she had better not displease him.
She couldn’t stand authoritarian people. She was used to keeping as far away as possible from those who wanted to impose something on her. The social position of her family had allowed her to do it easily, but when she’d had to face the real world, after Joseph’s death, she had discovered that she just wasn’t able to avoid those kinds of people. They were everywhere and almost always they were more important than her, or at least had a real power over her, like Monroe. Okay, sometimes she ignored him and didn’t follow his orders. Actually the situation she was in now had been caused by one of those times. And that highlighted another truth: listening to authoritarian people could be a good idea. Even more now that an unspecified number of other people were trying to wipe her from the face of the Earth and the authoritarian person on duty seemed to always have the situation under control. Well, in that case, you had to add that Mike was definitely more interesting than Monroe. Although he had been extremely rude with her, Amelia tended to forget about that aspect and focused on the positive ones: self-confident, charming, a former spy. Moreover, he had saved her life. There was also the irrelevant detail that she had been to bed with him, which, even if she kept denying it to herself, dramatically changed the perspective from which she judged him. There we go, she was doing it again, she was sweetening things. Poor, silly little girl who let herself being conquered by the first one who saved her life! But in the end, she had to admit that his being authoritarian made her feel safe, in these particular circumstances. Even when he called her a bitch.
How sad.
Her mind kept going round and round from one thought to another and she hadn’t noticed that he was studying her. And it appeared he was even having fun. “A penny for your thoughts.” There was no more noises out there.
“What?” It was the standard reply that allowed her to think about a real answer.
“I had the impression that you were about to ask me something, then your gaze got lost.” He was smiling.
How he could make out her gaze with such little light was a mystery, but Amelia decided it was better not to break the spell with an irritating remark. “I was thinking that …” What? That he was a hottie and, in spite of everything, she would go to bed with him again right now? No, that wasn’t a suitable answer. “It’s kind of nice here.” Which was exactly the opposite of her previous desire to go away.
An expression between amusement and perplexity met her words. “Really?”
“Well … I mean …” She unfastened her safety belt so that she could turn completely toward him. Oh, to hell! “I like you an awful lot, Mike Connor … or whatever your name is.” She started shaking her hands, nipping in the bud any attempt at a reply from him. “Yes, I know that, said like this, it sounds so teenage, and anyway you already knew that, and that … well, I know.” She stopped to breathe, but then she noticed that he was about to say something so she decided to blow the whistle. “What I mean is that I really don’t like the idea that you are going to disappear from my life after all this. And even if you’ve decided that it’ll be so, I’d like to have a say in it or at least have a chance to make you change your mind.” Mike started opening his mouth, but she anticipated him again. “And I know that I’m a police officer and you are … what you are … and this poses some problems, but at the moment I don’t give a fuck, because I’ve never met anyone like you. And not because you’re a former spy and kill people like they are flies or the like.” She shook her head hard. “No, actually, these things creep me out, but I like you all the same. That’s it.” At last she shut up.
He could have said something now, but kept looking at her as if he was waiting.
“Oh, fuck, I’m blabbering,” she said, shaking a hand to show he ought to ignore her, and turned to the other side. Her brain-mouth filter had completely failed. Better stay quiet and avoid making herself even more of a laughing-stock.
“For sure I have never met someone like you, Amelia Jennings.”
She felt floored by that velvet voice, but still couldn’t find the courage to look at him.
He sighed, before continuing. “And I like you an awful lot, too.”
Amelia let a laugh escape at the way he had stressed those three words, and she risked a glance in his direction.
“And the last thing I would like to do is not to see you anymore.”
She found herself turning to him. She hadn’t realised she’d done it.
“But …” Mike’s expression hinted at a sort of melancholy. “I know full well that if I stay beside you I’ll end up putting you in danger.” He extended his hands. “Like what’s happening now. I don’t want you risking your life uselessly for someone like me.”
“Why do you say so?” she objected. “What does that mean, someone like you? It seems just an … excuse.”
“I’m damaged goods, Amelia.” He was looking her straight in the eye. “We both know that full well.”
If only he had known. Maybe she should have told him. “I am, too.”
“Oh, no, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” There again, his sarcasm was back.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” she replied, raising her voice. “You are the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” She felt her eyes becoming wet. “Perhaps I wasn’t kidnapped and tortured in the Middle East. You beat me with that, okay, I’ll give you that one!” She cracked a smiled amongst her tears, which reflected on his face. “But I have my own demons persecuting me.” Her s
mile died, she bit her lip, whilst she tried to go on. “It’s like I’m just looking for a way to dodge them and get on with my life, only that …” Her voice betrayed her for a moment. “I can’t. I can’t, not all alone.” Her tears were rolling down uncontrollably and she lowered her gaze. It was then that she felt her hand being taken. “I know it’s folly, because we’ve just met, but I have the feeling, or maybe it’s just an illusion, that you and I could reach our common goal, together.”
“It’s a risk.” Mike was stroking her knuckles with his thumb.
“Are you going to tell me that you’re afraid to take a risk?”
“Yes, a bit.”
“So you are human.” She scrutinised him, tilting her head so that she could watch him from below in the crepuscular light.
He nodded. “Yes, a bit.”
They started laughing in unison. Oh God, what a great sensation. In spite of the tiredness, fear, and cold that was penetrating her clothes, Amelia hadn’t felt so close to the idea of happiness for years. It was the kind of satisfaction that hits you unexpectedly, when you realise that something you desired is actually already yours, and you wonder how it happened. And at the same time you’re afraid that just like it arrived, before you can feel it belonging to you, it will be taken away from you.
“I think we can try to go,” Mike says, still holding her hand. “The main road isn’t far from here, but we have to be careful. I’m afraid we have a flat tyre.”
She reached out with her other arm and placed her fingers on his face. “It’s a problem, it’ll slow us down.” She was speaking in a serious tone, as if she was really pondering the matter, but meanwhile she had slipped a hand into his hair.
“It’s a serious problem over such bumpy terrain,” he remarked. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “We can’t hope to leave them behind, if they find us.” He placed a hand on her hip and pulled her to him. Her gun fell from her legs to the foot well. A last close glance, then he kissed her, pushing his mouth hard on hers, with rhythmical and avid movements.
Kindred Intentions Page 11