Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  David turned his head to look over at Cassie, who opened her eyes. He wouldn’t have put it past her to have a sixth sense about people watching her.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey yourself.” Cassie shifted in her seat. “God, this chair is uncomfortable.”

  “How can you say that after living in the Middle Ages for five years?”

  “Nobody pretends that you can sleep in a medieval chair,” Cassie said, “though that rocker you had made for Lili is pretty nice.”

  “How long have I been asleep?” David said.

  “A long time,” Cassie said. “We brought you in around nine in the evening yesterday, and it’s almost that time again, though a day later.”

  David pressed the ‘up’ button on the bed to raise himself to a sitting position and pulled up his knees too.

  “Can you feel your feet?” Cassie said.

  David wiggled his toes. “Yes.” He looked at her warily. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t be able to?”

  “They were numb,” Cassie said. “How much do you remember?”

  “Apparently, not a lot.” David thought back. “I do remember the interrogation room and seeing you two come through the apartment door. But nothing after that.”

  “I guess that’s not surprising, given the drugs they gave you,” Cassie said. “Fortunately, the man who abducted you had just gotten started when we rescued you or you would be in a lot worse shape than you are.”

  David swallowed hard, unnerved to hear how close it had been. “Thank you, if I neglected to say it before.”

  “You are most welcome,” Cassie said. “Clearly, you’re feeling better.”

  “The medic wasn’t kidding when he said the antibiotic shot would work. My throat is only a tiny bit sore and my head is clear.” David flexed his shoulders and arms, pleased to discover that at the moment nothing hurt. Triumph shot through him at the knowledge that this wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. “And I’m hungry.”

  “I’m sure that can be remedied soon enough,” Cassie said, “though hospital food is nothing to write home about.”

  “Tell me what I missed,” David said.

  Cassie grumbled. “I did this already,” but then she obliged with a long soliloquy on everything that had happened while they’d been apart.

  David felt like he’d slept through three-quarters of a movie and missed all the best parts. He gestured towards the door. “What’s the argument about in the hallway?”

  “They don’t know you’re awake yet, of course, but they’ve been talking nonstop since we brought you here about what to do with you. Callum is being treated like the hero he is, so we’re good there, but skeptics in the Home Office are having a field day with how screwed up today—” She glanced at a small digital clock on a side table which David hadn’t noticed until now. It said 8:30, “—or rather, yesterday, got.”

  “Is one of them Smythe?” David said.

  “No,” Cassie said. “While you were asleep, Smythe left for London on Lady Jane’s orders. He was to brief representatives from the Home Office on the situation in person.”

  “Lady Jane?” David said.

  “Callum’s name for Director Cooke,” Cassie said.

  “Why in person?” David said.

  “Probably for his own self-aggrandizement, but Lady Jane isn’t trusting any open form of communication, even a secure cell phone, with your whereabouts,” Cassie said. “That woman has ice water for blood.”

  David peered up under the blinds. “They really ought to include me in this conversation.”

  “You’re not very good at letting other people take charge of things, are you?” Cassie said with a laugh.

  “It hasn’t been my experience that doing so generally turns out well,” David said. “I am the King of England, after all.”

  “Oh sure,” Cassie said, “but I bet you were this way before. In fact, I’ve talked to Anna, so I know you were.”

  Even though David hadn’t seen his sister for months—hadn’t even met her new baby—Cassie and Callum had traveled to Shrewsbury and then into Wales to meet the rest of their new family. That was after they got married and had returned from Orkney, which hadn’t turned out to be much of a honeymoon. While David and his companions had thwarted several of Valence’s schemes over the last year, he didn’t know how many he’d failed to thwart. The rogue baron couldn’t be allowed to roam free any longer.

  What David wasn’t so sure about was what he was going to do with Valence once he captured him. All of his counselors insisted that the man had to die. They thought Valence’s fellow conspirators, whom David still had locked up in the Tower of London, should be executed too. David wasn’t yet medieval enough to feel right about ordering the death of a man in cold blood. He was probably king enough to do it if he had to, but he didn’t know what it would take to live with himself afterwards.

  All of this was presuming, in Valence’s case, that they could take him alive. Or that they could take him at all. If Valence knew what was good for him, he would have left Ireland once he realized David was on his way and sailed for America. Never mind that its existence was a discredited Welsh myth or a Viking rumor. He should know that nothing was going to stop David now. Not even being displaced in time.

  That dilemma was for another day, however, and another place. David had to get better, though he realized as he swallowed again how much better he already was, and then get himself back to the Middle Ages. How he was going to get back was the only problem that interested him currently. He pursed his lips as he observed the group in the corridor again. He had to get past all of them to make it happen.

  Fortunately, he had allies in Cassie and Callum, and maybe he would garner a bit more sympathy now from Lady Jane and the others than he’d been given before. He was a valuable commodity. They didn’t want to let him go, but he’d been badly mistreated on their watch. Maybe that fact was something David could use to his advantage. It was a mercenary idea, and not entirely like him, but he had a kingdom to run and a wife and child he desperately needed to see again.

  The cluster of people talking in the hallway broke up, and Callum came through the door to the room, pushing it wider with his shoulder. He saw David sitting up and smiled. Cassie sat up straighter and said, “You are ridiculously handsome when you smile.”

  Ignoring his wife, except for the fact that his smile broadened further, Callum put his heels together and bowed. “Sire.”

  David waved a hand. “Shut up and tell me what’s happening.”

  Callum took a deep breath. “A great deal, none of it good. You’ve given some people a bad headache. The threat is not just from outside the Security Service, but within it too.”

  “Which makes it even worse,” David said. “Natasha wasn’t the only one?”

  “No,” Callum said.

  “And she hasn’t come in?” David said.

  “Neither she nor the ambulance men nor the police officer who drove her away. Who knows how many more conspirators we have to contend with.” Callum straightened David’s blanket until the edges were perfectly aligned. “We’ve spent the last twenty-four hours looking for all of them.”

  “I’m sorry about Natasha, Callum,” Cassie said.

  “Do we know yet who the men in the apartment were?” David said.

  “Both men are ex-military black-ops, working now for the private security firm, the Dunland Group. It has ties to defense contractors in the US, UK, and Europe.”

  “So not CIA,” Cassie said.

  “If they were secretly working for the CIA or any other agency, the Americans aren’t claiming them,” Callum said.

  Cassie slouched further in the uncomfortable chair so she could put her feet up on David’s bed and cross them at the ankles. “Would the Americans claim them if they were theirs?”

  “It is customary to acknowledge your own agent when talking to foreign agencies who are your allies.” Callum leaned against the wall between the two windows
, folding his arms across his chest and crossing his ankles in a mimicry of Cassie. “Admittedly, the Americans are at least as likely as the French to lie to us.”

  David fiddled with his remote control to alter his position. He shifted so he could see his friends better and contemplated getting out of bed. He wondered how badly that would freak out his guardians. “What would a defense contractor want with me?”

  “The same thing everyone wants, David,” Cassie said. “What makes you tick.”

  Lady Jane pushed through the door, looking not at David but at Callum. “We need to move him. Now.”

  Callum straightened against the wall. “What’s happened?”

  Lady Jane came a few steps further into the room and stopped at the end of David’s bed. “I apologize on behalf of the Security Service and the British government for what befell you when you were in our care. We didn’t do our job.”

  “Thank you,” David said.

  “We will do everything in our power to ensure your safety going forward.” She waved a hand. “Get him dressed.”

  It was unmistakably an order and not directed at him, but David swung his legs out of bed anyway. He couldn’t get out of here soon enough. Cassie crossed to the closet and opened the door. David was pleased to see his duffel propped upright against the back wall inside.

  “What have you not yet said?” Callum said.

  Lady Jane closed the door to the room. “The Home Office is sending a helicopter to collect David and bring him to London.”

  “Already?” David said.

  Lady Jane looked at her watch. “It will arrive within the hour.”

  “Do you trust her?” David asked Callum. The time for pretense appeared to be over.

  “I guess I do,” Callum said.

  “Then I’d better take this out.” David braced himself for the pain and removed the IV needle from his arm. He just refrained from cursing at how much it stung.

  “That had to hurt.” Cassie dropped the duffel bag to the floor at David’s feet.

  Shaking off his discomfort, David pulled out its contents, setting them aside one-by-one until he found his breeches. He tapped the packet of papers that had been at the bottom of the duffel. “Thank you for bringing it all.” He stood to shove a foot into one leg of his breeches.

  “You wouldn’t have printed out that lot if you didn’t need it,” Callum said.

  David might have been embarrassed to have two women in the room while he dressed, but it seemed silly to worry about modesty under the circumstances. Lady Jane faced away, going to the door with Callum to peer into the corridor. David glanced at the windows in the inner wall and saw nobody there.

  “Did you order everyone to leave?” David tugged his shirt on over his head.

  “I made sure they’d be occupied for the next few minutes,” Lady Jane said. “Time enough to find our way to my vehicle downstairs.”

  David stopped, his hands to the ties of his shirt. “Isn’t that a huge risk for you?”

  “Even if it is, I’m past caring,” Lady Jane said. “The time has come for risk-taking.”

  Callum pointed at David with his chin. “Put on that vest.”

  “What?” David said. “Where?”

  Callum snapped his fingers, indicating the Kevlar vest poking out of the duffel. “That vest. Put it on.”

  David looked at it dubiously, but Cassie picked it up.

  “What about you two?” David said.

  “We’re not anybody’s target,” Callum said, leaving the door. “We don’t know what situation we might be getting into. You have no armor so you need to wear the vest. For all our sakes. It has ceramic plates in key locations that will even stop an arrow.”

  “How nice for me,” David said, but took the vest from Cassie and held it to his chest. Then he looked up. “I couldn’t agree with Director Cooke more, by the way, that the time has come for risk-taking. Why don’t we go up to the roof right now and jump off?”

  “Do you think you’re ready for that?” Cassie said.

  David looked at his friends with a completely calm expression. “I have my clothes. Five minutes and we’re gone.”

  “You’re really willing to risk your life, jumping off a ten story building, on the off-chance you’ll be transported to the Middle Ages?” Lady Jane said.

  “What choice do I have? Last time, I got home by causing a car wreck. This world-shifting thing only works when my life is in danger.” David gestured to his bed. “Almost dying of a bad drug interaction is apparently not good enough.”

  “We would have to jump with you,” Cassie said.

  “I understand your difficulty.” David rubbed at his jaw and saw blood trickling down his arm. Callum noticed it too and handed David a tissue from a box on the side table. David pressed it to the cut. He was probably lucky the vein hadn’t opened more. “I do. I just don’t see an alternative. I need to get home!”

  “He’s right,” Cassie said. “Instead of going with Director Cooke to her car, we could slip up to the roof.”

  “We could take the car and try the balcony at Chepstow, like I suggested before,” Callum said.

  “Even if we could reach it without getting caught, I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough,” David said. “Believe me, I’m glad it worked—both times—when my mom and dad jumped. If it hadn’t, they would have lived through it. I just don’t feel like that’s going to be good enough for me.”

  “What’s the downside of trying?” Cassie said.

  “We get wet,” Callum said, “and end up in the Wye River.”

  David sat on the edge of the bed and clasped his hands in front of his mouth, looking at them both over his fingers. He didn’t say anything. They could argue with him until they were blue in the face, but it wasn’t going to change his mind.

  “I’m willing to risk my life for you, but …” Callum glanced at Cassie.

  David switched to medieval Welsh. “You don’t want to risk Cassie’s. I understand.”

  “I don’t know what you just said, but I don’t care either.” Cassie had arranged the chest and back pieces of the Kevlar vest on David’s torso and was systematically velcroing the shoulder pieces, adjusting the sizing so it fit snugly over David’s shirt. She stopped in the act of cinching the chest piece tighter and looked into David’s face. “Do you believe jumping off the roof will take you home?”

  “Yes.” David spoke with utter resolve.

  “Then I do too,” she said.

  Lady Jane had been watching them with her arms folded across her chest.

  “Thank you for your help,” David said to her, “but I have every intention of getting out of your hair as soon as possible.”

  Lady Jane’s lips pinched together and she glared at David. “I am loath to lock you up—”

  “—because that’s worked so well so far,” Cassie said.

  “—but you are forcing my hand.” Lady Jane transferred her hostile glare to Cassie.

  Cassie shrugged, not at all cowed. “David seems to get what he wants most of the time. I suggest you let him do what he needs to do, and perhaps in the end you might get something out of it. Knowledge, if nothing else.”

  David had been pleased to let Cassie talk back to Lady Jane, but then Lady Jane snapped back at her. “Do you want to see your grandfather again or don’t you?”

  “Hey now.” Callum took a step towards Lady Jane, but in that instant the window between David’s bed and the corridor exploded in a shower of glass.

  “Get down!” They all shouted at once, and a second later, David found himself on the floor beneath both Cassie and Callum, who had dived at him at the same time. Cassie had gotten there first, shoving him flat onto his bed, and then Callum had scooped them off the bed to land in a heap on the other side. Cassie lay flat on the floor beside David, with Callum stretched across them both.

  David turned his head to look under the bed and found himself looking at Lady Jane. Her eyes were open but sightless. She was dead
.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  September, 2017

  Callum

  It had taken Callum a half second—which in retrospect could have been too long if the killer had been aiming for David instead of Lady Jane—to realize that when the window exploded, it was because the bullet had come through the plate glass window on the street side of the room and hit the window in the corridor after passing through the room and its victim. Lady Jane’s skull had slowed it and spun the bullet enough to shatter the glass instead of punching through it like it had the outside window. Callum expected that when someone examined the hole in the outer window later, he would find that the bullet had created a perfect circle the width of the bullet itself.

  “Agent down! Agent down!”

  Men shouted to one another, repeating Callum’s words, and then someone much closer to the doorway said, “Callum?”

  “Stay down, Driscoll! The shooter has a clear line of sight into this room. He may still be out there,” Callum said.

  “Who’s down?”

  Callum watched the doorway as Driscoll, appropriately attired in Kevlar, peered around the frame, his head only eighteen inches above the floor. Driscoll’s eyes widened at the sight of Lady Jane’s body, and then he focused on the three of them huddled behind the bed a few feet away.

  “Christ.” Driscoll brought his mobile phone to his lips. “Man down, man down.”

  “We’re moving!” Callum hooked his arms under David’s to get him going, while Driscoll reached for Cassie. They left the room at a low crouch, their noses only a few inches from the floor. A phalanx of men in black Kevlar gave way as they exited the room, and Cassie, Callum, and David hustled away down the hall. The hospital was set up so one bank of rooms took up one half of ICU, and a second bank took up the other, with the nurse’s station, administrative offices, and lavatories in the middle. Callum went down the right-hand corridor and opened the second door on the left, which said, ‘Family Members Only’.