As her dad always said, people saw what they wanted to see, so most people should ignore a person in a lab coat acting as though she belonged there. Yet, this wasn’t a normal hospital. A trained operative could be healing from a gunshot wound and see her walking down the hall. Her actions had to be perfect. Nothing she did could tip anyone off about her intent.
She put on the lab coat, grabbed a notebook, a metal pen, and the coffee mug she’d taken out of the staff room the day before. She glanced in her mirror. Everything looked good but the way she stood. That damn knee would give her up before she could pass the nurses’ desk. She straightened her posture and bit back the pain. Her pulse intensified the closer she moved to her bedroom door.
Walking down the deserted hall, at first, hurt like hell, especially as she tried to conceal the limp with an exaggerated swagger. If she evened out her attention to both legs, she might look somewhat normal. The throbbing in her chest sped up to almost double its normal pattern.
A staff member walked by her, caught up in something on his phone, and continued past. That provided Emma with some needed confidence until she arrived at the elevator. This was her do-or-die moment. Her heartbeat drowned out some of her hearing as the pounding increased.
She only had one chance at this.
The elevator doors only opened with an identification badge. She didn’t have one. One face-to-face meeting with a staff member who recognized her, and she’d be locked in her room with less freedom than she had now.
She leaned against the wall and looked at the notebook while holding the coffee mug partially in front of her face. She tried to appear relaxed, purposefully slowing her breathing as though deep in a meditative state.
Someone strolled past her on the way to the locked section of the infirmary, where an armed guard stood sentry over the entryway. The staff person was preoccupied and didn’t acknowledge her. Then the elevator door pinged.
She held her breath.
The doors opened, and two individuals walked out. She didn’t recognize either of them. She pushed off the wall and concentrated on not revealing her face or her limp. They passed her and headed down the hall. The door started to shut. She sped up and stuck the notebook between the doors. Everything paused for a moment until the doors pinged again, opened wide, and allowed her inside. When she turned to face the closing doors, the hall was clear.
She glanced up at the floor number. Negative three. She pressed the floor marked “G.”
Nonstop. Please.
The doors opened at the Ground Level. She straightened her back, tucked her handy notebook under her arm, and strolled through the security station, saying “hi” to one of the security guards with her most relaxed smile.
As she walked to the doors, they slid opened for her. She meandered outside.
Just an everyday employee going for her break. For the first time in over a week, she was outside, and the day was beautiful.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emma’s freedom began by turning away from the river. Bridges tended to have security cameras on them, so although she would have loved to have walked along the banks of the Thames toward the London Eye, she went in the opposite direction.
Her first breath of clean air was hampered by a flurry of regret and indecision. Besides trying to avoid government surveillance, she had a few other dilemmas. No money. No identification. No passport. No contacts.
As she walked away from her captors, she rolled up the lab coat and tucked it under her arm. She crossed under a railroad bridge, careful to keep her face from anything that could snap a photo. She tossed the coat, the coffee cup, and her notebook in the first trash can she found. Carrying nothing but a metal pen as a weapon, she strolled along the street, ignoring her stomach aching or the growing headache from her constant scanning of every person and every car.
When she cleared a few blocks, she paused at an intersection. Walking away from MI6 wouldn’t work. They could cover this entire section of the city in no time. She needed faster transportation.
Rubbing her fingers over her eyelids until they were sore and hopefully red, she smeared her makeup into something resembling a sad mess of a girl, then bit into her lips and waited at a bus stop with a few early risers. When a red double-decker bus arrived, she made sure she was the first person on board.
“Miss, you need to show your Travelcard.” The driver, an older woman with a face made for intimidation, waved her hand for Emma to stop entering the bus.
“My what?” Her voice came out a faint breathy blur, 100 percent American. “I need to get to Tooting. My boyfriend left me here. Can I get a lift to pick up my things?” She rubbed one of her eyes as though tears threatened to erupt at any moment.
“Sorry. You need to— “
A woman behind her with a baby in her arms handed the driver her card. “Swipe it twice for the girl. We’re all gonna be late if you spend the next five minutes arguing.”
The driver waved everyone through. Emma thanked her savior, then climbed to the second floor and enjoyed the ride through London to a place as far away from MI6 as possible.
When the bus made its final stop, she climbed down and found herself in a charming neighborhood full of town houses and an interesting array of people hustling to a life she didn’t have. She strolled along a row of restaurants and coffee shops and tried to figure out her next step. Money, passport, locate her father.
Money was her biggest concern. She could steal it. Guilt kept her criminal tendencies in check; at least, she tried to act like a good citizen for a person who had escaped from British custody. Maybe she could offer to help in a restaurant for a few days in exchange for some under-the-table money. She walked the block and banged on the doors of several stores to see if they had any odd jobs, but the red eyes that helped her on the bus probably scared off the store owners.
By seven o’clock, her energy was depleted. Her confidence had eroded. She found a bench overlooking a soccer field and walked through her options. She needed access to people, and the best means for that was the internet.
She headed to a coffee shop and used the bathroom to clean up. They didn’t have computers for public use, but pointed her to some places that might. On her way out, she weaved through a room crowded with people lost in conversations or staring at their phones. Some college-aged British hipster type sat alone with earphones on and his attention on the breasts of the barista at the counter. Without slowing, Emma nabbed his backpack from behind his seat and walked right out of the cafe. No guilt followed her actions. This was beyond normal moral codes. She’d been thrust into an impossible situation and had to work outside the lines to survive. Besides, according to Macknight, the entire MI6 operation in the Kremlin was at risk of breaking apart if she was caught by the wrong people.
Remaining at a leisurely pace, she turned onto smaller and smaller side streets, until she found a quiet spot. She unzipped the bag and located a few books and the guy’s wallet. Thirty pounds and a cell phone. It was a start.
After pocketing the cash and the phone, she tossed the backpack against a wall and took the next bus that came along, ending up near Regent’s Park. She located a small internet cafe called East of Earth, bought a large coffee and a cinnamon danish, and tried her best to learn about her enemies, both Russian and British.
First, she created an email account and sent a message to Chief Nolan about where she was and how she and her father needed help. She asked him to contact the embassy and the CIA. It was only three a.m. in New Hampshire, but maybe he’d check his email when he awoke.
A few months working on a multi-agency cyber security task force uncovering child pornography gave her enough knowledge to explore the dark web for her father’s whereabouts. Somewhere in the dark web existed resources to discover assassins, drug smugglers, and maybe the location of a spy. Criminal organizations tended to brag online about their success. If the GRU had taken him, her task would be more difficult. They preferred stealth in their actions.
No matter—she entered a few forums as LacrosseBunny and asked questions, never mentioning her actual name or the exact details of her circumstances. A few groups sought more background from her, but right now, she was merely fishing for information. Someone named WhiteRabbit wanted to meet her in person. Fat chance that would happen. In a private chat room, the user explained that for the right amount of money, they could locate anyone. Emma wouldn’t hire such a stranger even if she had the money. She was desperate, but not stupid.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Owen was stranded in hell, and Macknight couldn’t do anything about it until he received his orders. The waiting drained all of his energy. The only thing keeping his spirits up was his time with an injured angel. Even though his visits with her were now strained, he enjoyed spending time with her. Understanding more about her father and where he came from explained her mastery of Russian. Debriefing reports of some of the guards at Windfield revealed that she’d killed the guy who had shot Ian. Beat him to death trying to access information. That alone earned her his loyalty.
Her inner strength and determination lifted his spirits from all the crap weighing him down. Besides, he liked her a lot. Regrettably, she didn’t seem too interested in dating her prison guard. She tolerated his presence, but her spirit was dying under lock and key.
Maybe breakfast together would be better. Yesterday’s lunch visit was a disaster. Being confined without access to news or updates on her father had to be killing her, but the other option for her was far worse. If Hanson had his way, she’d be hidden somewhere so remote, not even the Service would know her location. If Hanson chose to keep her alive. He was a bastard that way. He’d eliminated risks in the past, whether or not they were real or merely perceived.
There was no way Macknight would let that happen. Death wasn’t an option when it came to her.
Maybe she’d be his downfall. The woman who would destroy his career. He’d seen it happen before. An intelligence officer falls for the wrong person, and their heart overrides their brain. With Emma, his heart was trying its hardest to take over. The taste of her lips had become as necessary as breathing air, but she wasn’t the woman for him. Once Ross was dead, their paths would split to different continents, different futures.
He could only enjoy her company now.
When he arrived in the hospital ward, he waved to a few of the nurses at the desk and knocked on Emma’s door.
No answer.
He knocked again and then went inside. Her room was empty, the bathroom door wide open. She was probably visiting the staff or some of the patients. The staff here loved her. She was the patient who knew everyone’s name and the names of their children and pets.
“Is Emma in the staff room?” he asked Becca, who had situated herself behind the desk in the middle of the patient ward.
She shrugged. “I haven’t seen her all morning.”
“Did she have physical therapy this morning?”
“She only has that on weekdays.”
The back of his throat constricted. “You haven’t checked on her?”
“No. I just arrived. Michelle checked on her this morning.”
“What time?”
“About four.” It was already eight.
“Talk to Michelle and get an exact time when she last saw her.” His questions finally reached her cortex. She glanced toward the open door and popped up from her seat.
“Search the entire area,” he ordered.
He headed back to Emma’s room. She didn’t have any possessions, except a few clothes. He rummaged through everything, trying to remember each outfit he’d seen her in so he could figure out what she was wearing.
“Macknight?” Becca appeared at the door a few minutes later.
“Yes?”
“She’s gone. We checked all of the patient rooms, the staff room, the bathrooms, and the rehabilitation area. Every other area needs card access.”
“Call security and put a block on all the exits. Photo verification on everyone leaving the building. And check all locked spaces.”
Maybe she was enticed into a forbidden section of the infirmary or up to the ground floor. Hanson may have moved her after Macknight’s questions. The asshole wouldn’t give a damn whether she was comfortable, as long as she remained locked down, or worse, permanently silenced.
His chest tightened at the loss of her, a reaction only an intelligence officer without the brains to remain detached would feel.
He dialed Derek. “Emma’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“She slipped out of the infirmary somehow, or someone moved her. I can’t find anything to indicate a physical altercation, but I won’t rule it out, so look for others involved in her disappearance. Have the analysts check all video from four this morning on.” If she took off on her own, she was a fool.
The time was now quarter past eight. She could travel far in four hours, especially if she hitchhiked. Son of a bitch. She’d told him she wanted out in both her words and actions, and he’d ignored her. Placating her like a pet monkey. This was Ross’s daughter. And Macknight was a fool.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ross wouldn’t last much longer as a prisoner. As the Kremlin’s hunger for answers increased, their techniques became more violent. Fully isolated from the rest of the prison now, every day he endured a different method to force him to talk. He’d lost fingernails, received drugs, but the worst was waterboarding. They’d tilted him back in his cell, placed a cloth over his head like a funnel, and poured water into him. The water seemed to come from an endless source. A miserable experience that resulted in choking and wishing he were dead. After vomiting up the contents of his stomach, they threw him onto his cot.
“One name and then you can rest.”
“Fuck off.” He wouldn’t give up anything to the thugs.
Maslov wasn’t there to supervise, which meant he was out on another assignment. A hands-on operative, he rarely left things to chance. There had been times when Ross considered Maslov a mentor. He was relentless in a task and used every resource available to him to succeed. Everything changed the second he threw Elena down ten stories to her death in a rage of jealousy. That was the moment Ross had switched sides for good.
The soldiers pulled Ross back into position. He didn’t fight. There wasn’t much fight left in him. Not after weeks of malnutrition and an old body that didn’t heal as fast as it had in the past.
“Can you use beer this time?” he asked, hoping to speed up his demise.
One of the guards punched him in the gut then nearly drowned him again. Ross tried to contract his throat to avoid taking in more water, but they merely waited until he gasped for breath and then flooded him all over again. He clenched his hands and slammed his head trying to free himself. Nothing worked. It was like dying over and over again.
He had no ability to create allies in this facility. They’d made him an island. Alone, vulnerable, weak. The good news was they hadn’t found Emma. If they had, she would have been paraded in front of him. That would be the only reason he’d give up the names. Otherwise, he preferred death.
His insecurity and fear of death was the reason he’d been easily recruited by Russia so many years ago. They’d isolated and tortured him. A stupid British college student who had stolen drugs from the wrong person while studying in an exchange program with the Imperial College. The Russian authorities had no problem sentencing a twenty-two-year-old to prison for fifteen years. He’d spent four years suffering and fighting. When they offered him the chance to leave, he promised them anything they wanted.
Two days before his release, the British government reached out to him, after his prior attempts at contact had all failed in gaining his freedom. They offered him a deal. Agree to bring a British operative to London, and they’d make his release happen. He promised them anything, too, becoming a double agent before the age of twenty-five.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Macknigh
t returned to his flat and packed to head back to Russia. He had a small window to rescue Owen and take out Ross.
Whether they found Emma or not, Ross had to die. His death would simultaneously free Emma and destroy her. To keep his sanity, Macknight chose to handle the more dangerous work, while someone else rescued the princess.
His phone rang. Derek.
“Any news on Emma?” Macknight asked.
“She walked out of the building on her own at four-thirty-seven.”
The tension in his chest over a possible abduction subsided, but what was her destination? “Where is she?”
“Not sure. There’s footage of her strolling out of the building, wearing a stolen lab coat. Her gait indicates no injury whatsoever, which is a huge feat for a woman who had ripped her knee apart only days ago. I’m impressed. I bet not half of the new recruits could sneak out of MI6 without getting caught.”
“It’s not impressive. It’s suicide. Russian officers may be looking for her here. If they have one characteristic, it’s patience. They’ll sit outside her last known location for years waiting for the opportunity to strike. They could be following her as we speak.” He wanted answers.
“Get yourself to the airport. Jack’s meeting you there. Focus on her father. We’ll locate Emma. She was lucky, but she’s not infallible. She’ll leave a trace somewhere.”
Macknight hesitated, Hanson’s threats ringing in his head. If she were dead, the Russian assets would be safer. MI6 might mark her for extermination. It wouldn’t take much if they found her. Hell, he could have killed her a hundred times over since he’d met her. At the edge of the cave, when her body was limp in his arms. In the hospital, where one extra dose of something would have sent her into a permanent sleep. She wouldn’t expect Britain to be the enemy. Although at this point, she should know to not trust anyone. Not even him.
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