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.
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
