A Risk Worth Taking

by Brynn Kelly

  She didn’t flake out—it wasn’t a sedation mask; it was a gas mask like those the men wore. The blue haze dissolved into white light. Columns, brickwork and glinting glass sheets flashed by. Back in the atrium. The alarm sharpened, the dome swelling the panicked uproar. Anxious faces rushed past, people swerved out of the speeding gurney’s path.

  Samira shouted for help but the mask muffled her. She was being kidnapped in front of hundreds of people and all she could do was squeak.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SAMIRA 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 wa
s 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 sa
id, 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?