The Rybinsk Deception
Page 24
‘Yeah, I know.’ Coburn crumpled up the fax. ‘Your turn now. You have to tell me something.’
She smiled. ‘I didn’t realize we were taking turns.’
‘You said you’d called your godfather. What did you do that for?’
‘It was Indiri’s idea. Whenever her husband goes out on a raid, she believes that if she makes definite plans for when he comes home, nothing bad will happen. I know it’s silly, but she kept on about me doing the same.’
‘So you did – by taking out some insurance of your own with your godfather?’
‘Mm. I asked him if I could take a friend to stay for a week at a condominium he owns in Bali. It’s not right on the beach, but I’ve seen photos of it, and it looks really nice. Bali’s not that far, and my UNICEF pay cheque came on the fuel boat last week, so I’ve got the money for our airfares.’ She made herself more comfortable by leaning against him and crossing her legs. ‘If we’re having dinner at Hari’s we’ll be late home, so if you really are tired, do you want me to help you get over your jetlag this afternoon?’
Since she knew as well as he did that no one got jetlagged flying from Seoul to Singapore, and because she’d purposely neglected to pull down her skirt now she’d uncrossed her legs, the invitation was impossible to misinterpret.
She knew that too. Without waiting for him to reply she bent over and pressed her lips against his forehead. ‘I’ll be in the bedroom,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll call you when I’m ready.’
He watched her walk away, then stood up and went to look out the window.
Around the mangroves at the edge of the estuary, the incoming tide was beginning to stem the flow of the river, while in mid-stream, where birds were using a clump of weed as a floating raft, every so often fish feeding at the surface were creating tiny rings of ripples.
Closer to him at the site where the school was being built on the east side of the plateau, children who’d come back from the jetty were balancing a plank on a bucket to make an improvised seesaw. They were taking turns on it, bouncing up and down harder and harder until a woman shouted at them and they ran off giggling and laughing.
While he waited for Heather to call him, he continued staring out the window, taking care to remind himself of the reason for the village’s existence. On a lazy sun-filled day it was too easy to believe the place was perfect, he thought, a safe haven that was nothing of the kind. But so what? There might be somewhere better to start a new future, but now the young woman he’d found on the beach at Fauzdarhat had asked him to stay here with her, just as he knew this was where he wanted to be, so did he know how lucky he was to have her to share a future with.
By the Same Author
The Third Way
The Rosenberg Principle
Chicane
White Desert
Cogan’s Falcons
Cherry Red and Dangerous
Blood of Your Sisters
Dark Armada Covenant of the Poppies
Atoll
Hell’s Arena
Firestorm
Snowtrap
Glimpse of Forever
Hell Seed
Nightdive
Flameout
Cold Route to Freedom
On a Still Night
One Sword Less
Bitter Autumn
Adapted to Stress
Writing as Lindsey Grey
Smoke from Another Fire
Writing as Richard Hawke
Eye of the Warrior
Copyright
© Colin D. Peel 2009
First published in Great Britain 2009
This ebook edition 2011
ISBN 978–0–7090–9259–9
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Colin D. Peel
to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the
copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988