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 said, 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?
“You might want to buckle up, Samira,” he said.
He swayed to the narrow gap between the front seats and spoke to the driver, swiping the phone. She dived for the seat belt. Between the siren, the straining engine and the thick accents, she couldn’t follow the conversation. Something about bridges and gates.
Behind them the blond man was still on his phone, his gaze fixed on the back of the ambulance as if he could see her through the one-way glass. Calling reinforcements? How many thugs did Hyland have in London? The Peugeot driver wore a cap low and a scarf high, with sunglasses bridging the gap. The car stuck to the ambulance like a water-skier behind a boat, skidding left and right as they weaved. The man nestled the phone between his shoulder and his ear and made swift hand movements in his lap. He lifted something, its black outline obvious for a second before it disappeared behind the dash.
“Jamie, they have a gun.”
“They what?” yelled the driver. The ambulance lurched sideways. “Shit.”
Jamie swiveled. “Flat on the floor, Samira.”
Gladly. She unclipped, and crawled onto the gray vinyl, Jamie crouching beside her, gun aimed down. His London acquaintances evidently occupied different social circles from her family’s. Through the windows, the tops of stripped trees and squat buildings flashed by—red brick, black brick, blackened stone, dirty concrete, steel and glass. The ambulance turned, tossing her against a row of cupboards. With one hand, she clung to the track anchoring the gurney. She cradled her other arm over her head—like that would stop a bullet. The ambulance jolted left and right, braking and accelerating like it was tossing in the surf. She swallowed nausea. At least there was no panic attack.
Don’t say “panic attack.”
The London she knew was a sedate place—dim lamps in hushed private libraries, leather back seats in purring black embassy cars, silver calligraphy on heavy card. Until now, her scariest experience was getting separated from her father in Madame Tussauds when she was eight.
Jamie checked his watch. “Eleven minutes,” he called to the driver.
“Until what?” Her words dissolved in the noise.
“GPS says there’s congestion on the one-way loop from Whitechapel,” the driver yelled. “If we approach from there, they should get neatly stuck.”
“Good,” said Jamie, planting a hand on Samira’s back as the ambulance swerved again. “Time it right and we can squeeze in just before the gates close.”
Gates? He was planning to hole up somewhere?
“And if we arrive a minute later we’ll be trapped,” the driver shouted.
“Well, don’t get there late.”
“What’s to stop them slipping in behind us?”
“Selfish bastard London drivers. Who’s going to let them through?” Jamie winked at Samira—like she had any idea what they were talking about.
“You’re assuming those same bastards will part for an ambulance.”
Doubt flicked across Jamie’s face, and vanished.
“Mate, can’t you just call in an air strike or tank assault or something?” said the driver.
“That’s plan B.”
