by Brynn Kelly
“No.”
“Rafe, I am doing it.” She fitted her earpiece. “I have to get in there before he gets back.”
Rafe fisted his hand and knocked it against his thigh with a solid thud. “I won’t be able to wait outside the door, this time. As soon as Hyland’s personal detail walk up that corridor, they’ll know I’m an impostor, which will endanger you.”
“Come on. We’re running out of time.”
As Holly climbed out, Rafe opened his door, slowly shaking his head. “I’ll have to wait for you on the floor below. Doc? You coming?”
Jamie removed his arm from Samira’s waist. “You’ll be okay here?”
She nodded. No.
He fixed his earpiece and switched on the mic. “Key is in the ignition if you need it.”
“Tell Holly to set her mic to continuous,” she said.
They walked to the lifts, while Samira hunkered down and switched screens. Locating Charlotte would take her mind off what was happening above.
As Samira worked, the others remained silent, which didn’t help her twisted insides. Other voices filtered through Holly’s mic. The invisible drip tap, tap, tapped until it was drumming on Samira’s skull.
A thunk, a whir and the roller door rattled upward, headlights behind it. A large car rolled in, followed by another, and another. Land Rovers. Samira pressed her mic button, in her coat pocket. “Hyland’s motorcade just came in,” she whispered. The cars turned and slotted into parks side by side at the other end of the basement. Samira heard a door open and close. The dark head of a woman appeared over a dozen car roofs. She leaned back, lighting a cigarette. The other doors remained closed. “Looks like it’s only the drivers—they must have let the passengers out up top. They seem to be staying with the cars.”
“Can we get back without them noticing?” Jamie said, in an undertone.
“No, but hopefully they won’t be concerned with us. They’ll be local hired help. Their jobs will be to look after the cars, nothing else.”
“Okay. Rafe and I are waiting on the stairwell outside the sixth floor. Holly’s gone up to the seventh.”
Samira chewed her lip. After a minute of murmured voices and clicks, Holly’s whisper crackled through. “I’m in. Room’s clear. Same guys on the door, so I’m guessing he’s not here yet. Wait—a lot of voices outside.” Her breath sounded quickened, like she was moving fast.
“No risks, Holly.” Rafe.
“When have I ever taken—?”
A man’s voice, in the background.
“Hey, Pop,” Holly called, sounding like she’d put a towel over her mouth.
Samira strained but couldn’t work out the man’s words.
“Shit,” Holly whispered. “He’s on the phone.”
“Take your time.” Rafe, again. “No risks.”
After a silent few minutes, a man’s voice murmured again.
“Headache,” Holly croaked. “Came home early.”
Samira’s computer beeped. A news alert. Her mouth dried. “Local radio is reporting that Laura has cut short her signing. She’s on her way back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A PHONE TRILLED DISTANTLY, in Samira’s earpiece. Holly swore. “Hyland’s taken another call.”
“Get out of there, Holly,” Rafe rumbled.
“Couple more minutes.”
As they continued a whispered argument, Samira checked an online map. “Guys, Laura will be here within six minutes. We have to get our car out, at the very least. The second the real Prius pulls up outside they’ll figure it out and we’ll be trapped.”
“Can you drive it out?” muttered Rafe.
Samira eyed the key in the transmission. There was nothing she’d rather do. “I have to stay in the hotel to upload these files, if we manage to get this damn phone. We’re running out of time.”
“I’m going nowhere until Holly is safe.” Rafe paused. “That leaves you, Doc.”
“Merde,” Jamie said.
“Leave me your weapon.” Rafe, again. “Park around the corner, out of sight, then come back in through the security tent. You have the pass. Let’s hope it works.”
“God, this is the last thing I want to do,” Jamie said, breathless. “Samira, I’m on my way down. Is there somewhere you can hide?”
She brought up the hotel plans and checked security camera positions. “The gym and pool are at the other end of the basement. I’ll go there.” She’d have to walk past the drivers but they’d have no reason to be suspicious. The laptop beeped. Her jaw dropped. “Oh my God.”
“Samira?” Jamie, again.
“I’ve found Charlotte.”
A door beside the elevators opened. The north stairwell. Jamie strode out, eyeing the Land Rovers, his open suit jacket flapping. He opened the Prius door and landed on the driver’s seat.
“Where is she?”
Samira loaded an internet map and input the coordinates. She switched to satellite mode and zoomed in. “A commercial property.” She did a web search. “A former paint factory. I don’t suppose you have the kind of friends who could rescue a woman from a platoon of armed goons near London?”
“Texas should be in London by now but he couldn’t do it alone. We’ll have to risk involving the police. I’ll call him from a pay phone, while I’m out. He’s a resourceful guy. He’ll figure it out.”
Samira blew out her cheeks and wrote the address on Holly’s notepad.
“I’ll return as soon as I can,” Jamie said.
“We’ll be out of comms until you’re back.”
In the low light his eyes were dull. “I’ll come straight to the gym. Stay safe.”
“You, too.” She gathered the laptop, and retrieved her beanie from her coat pocket and pulled it low, her wig and scarf swallowing most of her face. She was wearing the camel coat, black dress, scarf and boots she’d worn through immigration but they were less recognizable than the blue coat. Goodbye sanctuary.
“Webs of the spider, remember?” he said.
She nodded, filled her lungs, took a last look at Jamie, for courage, and opened the door.
Stale cigarette smoke mixed with fresher fumes, garbage and damp. She dared not watch the Prius as Jamie maneuvered it to the roller door, which began to crank open. In her peripheral vision she sensed the smoking driver turning to look—taking the attention away from Samira.
“We’re almost out of time.” Rafe’s voice strained. “Holly, get out now or I swear I’m—”
“He’s nearly done with the phone call,” Holly whispered.
Samira pushed open a door into a low-lit corridor. She followed a waft of chlorine to the fitness center. A young bearded guy pounded a treadmill, a tinny beat buzzing from his earphones. Behind him a glass wall revealed a few swimmers in an indoor pool. Samira pushed open a door to a changing room. Deserted. She shut herself in a stall, sat on a bench and pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. Jazz played through a speaker. An air-conditioning unit hummed.
She hit the mic button. “I’m in the women’s changing rooms at the fitness center.”
“Noted.” Rafe’s voice.
How long before Jamie returned? Would he get back in the building? Would he be arrested? Captured?
She opened the laptop. Nothing she could do about that but there must be more she could do remotely...
After a few minutes, Holly cleared her throat and murmured an “mmm-hmm,” like she was replying to Hyland. More talking, then silence. “Okay, he’s in the bathroom. I’ve got the—”
The distant phone trilled again and abruptly silenced. A man’s voice.
“No, Pops, that’s my phone.” Holly sounded like she was shouting through her sleeve. A snap—the phone going into her clutch? “I’m going downstairs for coffee!”
In Samira’s earpiece, a door opened, th
en shut. A change in background noise. More voices. Samira’s heart thumped as if she were the one breezing past a crack squad of diplomatic security and goons.
Holly couldn’t take the lift down to the lobby or she’d risk walking right into Laura coming up. Samira checked the floor plan. “Holly, get out of the lift at level two and take the stairwell down between rooms 212 and 214.”
A squeal. A door opening? The background noise muted. “I’m already on the stairs, heading down.” Holly’s echoing voice labored, like she was jogging. “Oh shit.”
A beat. “Holly?” Rafe’s voice, shaking—also on the move. Any second he’d spot Holly.
“Stop!” A man’s voice, in the background—of which mic?
Clattering, clunking, heavy breathing. Rafe’s or Holly’s? Samira clutched her scarf.
“You?” A woman’s voice. Not Holly. Oh God, was that...Laura? She’d come up the stairs? “What the hell?”
A war cry from Holly, a hollow smack, a crash, a groan. “My purse,” she hissed. “The phone. Behind a plant. Stairs. Sixth floor.” She cried out—in pain, this time.
“She’s wearing a wire.” A man’s voice. The connection crackled and died.
“Holly?” Samira whispered. No answer. “Rafe?”
“I can’t find her. Holly, if you’re there, say something.” Silence. “Samira?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m on the stairs outside the sixth floor. Holly hasn’t come past and she’s not above me. She said she was taking the stairs. So where the fuck is she?”
Cold swept over Samira. “I know what’s gone wrong. There are two stairwells, one at the end of each floor.” The door to the bathroom swished. Two women came in, chatting. Samira lowered her voice. “She must have taken the south stairwell. You’re in the north.”
“How do I find the south stairwell?” His voice rolled like thunder.
“You’re on the restaurant floor. You can cross through the dining area to the other stairwell without a keycard. Set your mic to continuous.” Samira reached into her pocket and did the same.
“Putain.” With only one connection left, the line was clearer. Rafe’s fast footsteps thudded on carpet and then were swallowed by music, the hubbub of raised voices, clinking plates. A heavy door swished open. “I’m in the south stairwell. It’s empty. They have to have taken her to Hyland’s floor. I’m going up.”
“Rafe, no, you can’t go alone. Wait for Jamie, at least. And we need that purse.”
“You get the purse. I’m not leaving Holly.” His ragged breath and a rhythmic thumping suggested he was climbing, fast.
Samira wiped her hands down her coat. Crap, he was right. She couldn’t expect him to deliver her the phone, with Holly in danger. But if Samira could sneak up and retrieve it she could bring all this to an end. She stood, before she could talk herself out of it.
“I’m coming up,” she said, clutching the laptop to her chest.
Somehow she made her feet move, one step after another. Two minutes later, she pushed open a door to the south stairwell.
“Is that you on the stairs?” Rafe whispered.
“Awo, at basement level.”
She climbed, covering her face as she passed the ground-floor security camera, making out she was rubbing her eyes. As she turned onto another flight, she caught a flash of red ahead. She slowed. A piece of fabric was caught in a door stenciled Level Two.
“Rafe, I’ve found Holly’s scarf.” Had she dropped it on purpose? “Level two. They must have taken her down, not up.”
“What’s on level two?”
“Accommodation. The cheaper rooms. Could be where Laura’s staff are quartered.”
Rafe had already changed course, descending fast, the footsteps in Samira’s earpiece falling a microsecond later than the ones above her. He rounded a corner and jogged down to meet her, gun in hand. Cautiously, he tried the door. Locked.
He nodded at a card reader on the handle. “We need a keycard.”
Samira pulled out half a dozen from her coat pocket.
“Merde. Where did you get those?”
“The changing room.” She shuffled through those that were still in their paper folders, the room numbers written on them. “I searched some bags on the way out. Here,” she said, shoving one into his hand. “Level two.” She climbed past him. “But you should really wait for Jamie. And hide your gun from the cameras. Enough people are after us already—we don’t need hotel security joining the chase.”
“I’ll be discreet. You going for the purse?”
“Awo. We need it to finish this.”
“Okay,” he said, as if it were an everyday kind of thing.
As she climbed, her breath shuddering, she heard the swish of Rafe opening the door below. She braced for shouts, scuffles—gunshots. Nothing. Her cheeks prickled. Where was Jamie? How much time had passed?
She passed the fifth floor and rounded the stairwell again, and again. She wiped sweat from her upper lip. Ahead was the door to the sixth. Beside it, a pot plant was tipped on its side, the pottery cracked, dirt spilling across the floor. She pictured Holly cornered, falling toward it, knocking it over, stashing the clutch.
The purse was wedged between the branches, the shape of the phone clear within it. Samira retreated down the stairs, checking her keycards. Time to hide again, thank God. At level three she pulled a card from its folder and swiped. A click, and the light went green. She pushed open the door, hunkering into her scarf and wig. Another accommodation level. At the far end of the corridor, a white-haired couple waited for an elevator. The woman smiled at her. She managed to smile back. The elevator dinged. As they disappeared inside, Samira strode to the room marked on the keycard and knocked. No answer. She let herself in. The door clicked blessedly shut. She leaned against it and yanked off her beanie, wig and scarf, trying to concentrate on emptying her lungs rather than filling them.
“Rafe?” No answer. “Rafe?” When had she last heard anything, even ambient sound? “I’m in room 327.”
Silence. She pulled the laptop open and perched on a neatly made bed. A single suitcase lay open in a corner of the room. A woman’s clothes. Hopefully a sole occupant. Hopefully someone who liked long swims. Through the gauze curtains she could see the sash windows of the apartment building where they’d devised this ridiculous plan—the safe house where a naive, slightly younger version of herself thought she’d be sitting this out.
She switched on Hyland’s phone. It requested a swipe pattern. No telltale finger marks, this time. Damn. On the laptop, she searched for videos of him using his phone. After the nineteenth video, she’d worked out the shape of the pattern from his hand movements. Two attempts later, she was in. Just a few more minutes and this would be done... The phone beeped and vibrated. Six missed calls—two from Laura. Trying to report Holly’s capture?
Samira found the Gold Linings app on the phone, opened the website on the laptop and shakily entered the code. A loading screen popped up. She gave a silent fist pump.
A message beeped on a gold screen. Progressing to authentication step three.
Her stomach plummeted. Another level of security?
A grunt, through the earpiece—a cry of effort. A thud. Shouts—indistinct, but definitely Rafe’s voice.
“Rafe?” she whispered.
A crack, a buzz, then...nothing. Her breath shallowed out.
“Samira.” The voice was little more than a crackle—but it wasn’t Rafe’s.
“Jamie? Oh thank God. Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m right outside but I can’t...” His voice dissolved. She caught the word Fitz.
“I can’t hear you.” She walked to the window and drew the gauze back a fraction. No sign of him but the hotel’s awnings covered much of her view of the pavement. “Jamie?”
“I
can’t really hear you, Samira, but if you can hear me...stuck outside a bit longer...he’s standing...entrance. Hold on. I’ll move...corner. Is this any better?”
“Yes, that’s better. Can you hear me?”
“Aye, but I’m going to look odd standing here talking to myself. What’s the update?”
She quickly filled him in and told him her room number. God, everything was shot to hell. No Rafe, no Holly, an impenetrable vault. From the security tent below, the unmistakable head of Fitz stepped out, a phone to his ear. He looked up, and she shrank back—not that he’d be able to see her.
“Fitz is out there,” she said.
“I know. He’s patrolling the bloody tent. So what’s this step three?”
“Third-factor ID. It’s biometric. Not just something you know and something you have but also something you are. This is not the security you use for your vacation photos.”
“What is it, a fingerprint?”
She sat at the laptop. “Or an iris scan or a... Oh God, it’s asking for a facial scan.”
“Can you use a photo of him?”
“It has to be 3-D.”
“A 3-D printer?”
“Got one on you?”
“Could we...?” Crackle.
“Jamie, I’m losing you.” Static. Shit. “Jamie?” The laptop clock ticked over another minute. “Jamie? Rafe?”
Fuck it. They couldn’t count on Fitz giving up sentry duty anytime soon, leaving Jamie stranded outside. Rafe and Holly were God knew where. She stared at the clock. In thirty-two minutes they’d all be permanently screwed, along with her parents, Tess and Charlotte. She had to stop waiting for someone else to breeze in and make everything better. Webs of the spider. She tapped the laptop casing. How could she make this happen, alone?
She got to work, her hands tap-dancing over the keyboard, conscious of every precious minute that passed. Jamie remained silent.
Finally, she pushed the computer off her lap and rubbed her face, cycling her new plan through her head, probing it for bugs, defects, oversights. She walked to the window.
“Jamie?” Nothing. Fitz was still on his phone, arms crossed, breath puffing out as fog. “Jamie?” Silence. “I wish I had your confidence,” she whispered.