Run Among Thorns (12 page)

Jenny swatted his arm away, seeing stars. The big oaf. “You can’t just leave me here, locked in! What if there is a fire or something? What if I were to have an accident?”
What if he never comes back?

He drained his coffee, shrugging into his coat, giving her one, long, measuring look.

“I’m not going to be gone long, Jenny. I’m only going across to Newcastle. There’s a computer suite there I can use to hook up with a meeting I’ll set up this morning. Video conferencing.” His temper was getting short. She could see it in the way his brows contracted, in the way his lips thinned. In the way he adjusted his cuffs with tight, controlled movements of his big hands.

“It’s the middle of the night in America!” she said, not quite believing he’d really contact them. In all honesty, she didn’t quite believe he was going to talk to them at all, going to get her off the hook. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to trust him. But she didn’t like herself for wanting that, either.

The whole thing was a mess.

“Yes, it is. I’ll get them out of bed. That okay with you?”

“Oh, shut up.” She wrapped her arms round her middle, scowling at him. “I just don’t want to be locked in here by myself. You know as well as I do that’s stupid and dangerous.”

He looked at her for a long moment, breathing hard, but she just glared back at him until her eyes stung.

“Wait here.” He turned away and headed for the door.

“No!” Jenny cried. She leapt up and lunged forward to try to grab his arm but missed. “You can’t do this!”

She collided with his back as he halted. McAllister turned and took her shoulders, setting her back from him. He ducked his head to look into her eyes.

“Jenny, stop it. I’m going to get you a phone, okay? Wait. Here.” He went out.

She pulled back from him abruptly, ashamed of her panicked reaction. The thought of being alone in the cottage was scaring her out of all proportion to the problem. Truth was, he’d been pulling her strings since she got here. The idea of him cutting loose left her feeling limp.

Jenny had been living minute to minute now for days. Struggling to cope with each new challenge as it turned up. Now everything had skewed again: it looked like she was going to get her life back. She just didn’t know what to do with it anymore.

She was clutching at little things that gave her security. She hated that one of them was Kier.

He came back in with a mobile phone in his hand.

“It’s blocked, okay? But you can call nine one one—”

“You mean nine nine nine. Emergency services are nine nine nine over here.”

He flicked her an irritated glance. It made him look so human she almost grinned.

“Whatever. You can call me on my alternate cell phone, and you can receive incoming calls. But you can’t dial out any other number. Got that?”

“What’s the number for your other mobile?”

“It’s in the memory. Press the green button and you’ll see it. Press it again and—”

“Okay, McAllister. I’ve used mobiles.”

He scowled. “You’re not off the hook yet, Waring. Don’t piss me off.”

Jenny held out her hand for the phone. For a second he didn’t give it to her. Then he laid it in her palm, but held on to it until she looked at him.

His eyes were travelling over her face as if recording it. Then they met hers, and her heart lurched and began to beat in hard, painful strokes. If she’d imagined care there before, this was the real thing.

He let go of the phone, and cupped her free hand with his. Jenny felt the warmth of his fingers, and shivered when he ran his thumb across the back of her hand. His skin was rough against hers.

“I …” His deep voice was raspy, and he paused to swallow. “We’ll sort this out, okay? I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

Too late
, she thought, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she stared up at him, mesmerised, and didn’t care that there were tears welling in her eyes.

“Okay,” she whispered, and watched him leave in silence.

It was a board of three. Kier studied the faces of the men in the three little boxes on the screen in front of him.

Davids was John Dawson’s boss, head of the Agency. Kier wasn’t sure if he was the head of the whole deal, but he was sure he didn’t trust him a damn. He was overweight, balding, and rarely looked anyone in the eye. He was dressed in a surprisingly cheap-looking suit for someone who should be bringing in such a high salary.

To Davids’s left was Jeremy Groven. A quiet, lean man in his fifties with a reputation for a manipulative deviousness that was an enviable skill in his profession. He stared at the screen in front of him with a faint air of boredom.

On the other side was a man whom McAllister was not happy to see.

His name was Matthew Christopher Kendrick, and he was in Kier’s own line of work. He’d made his name deprogramming cultists, but Kier knew that was the least of his talents. He was strongly built, tall and fair, with green eyes that never revealed anything. Today, he sported a three-day beard, and McAllister wondered what assignment they’d pulled him from. His presence on this impromptu board suggested they were prepared to challenge anything he put before them, with the authority of another expert.

He knew John Dawson would be there, too, recording the proceedings, but no one there disturbed him half as much as Kendrick.

The speed with which the meeting had been set up also disturbed him. He hadn’t counted on them being so interested, and now he was worried, turning a pen over and over in his fingers, out of sight of the webcam, waiting for their reaction to his findings.

His report was clear. The whole thing had been a fantastic fluke, backed up by her own natural talents and clear thinking. She was just an incredible natural proficient with outstanding reactions—she’d beaten him twice, after all. And the finding pleased him, because now he could go back and tell her she was free, give her back her life. He was glad,
glad
, damn it, that she was innocent, that she was free. It gave him a sense of satisfaction he’d seldom found at the end of one of these episodes. Rather than seeing her incarcerated and further interrogated, eventually locked up and forgotten somewhere, well away from the usual justice department jails, instead he could go back and let her go. And never see her again. And get on with his life. He tried to concentrate; Davids was speaking.

“Well, gentlemen. I am satisfied with the findings of this report. And bearing this in mind, I think it is clear that we need to bring Waring in and build a programme around her natural talents. We can’t let such skill go to waste,” he said with a jovial air that Groven dutifully laughed at.

Kier’s mind stuttered on that one, as if he’d turned a corner and found himself somewhere else entirely.

“Hang on. She’s a conservationist, not an operative,” he said.

Davids chuckled. “I think our programme could turn even a conservationist into an operative, Mr. McAllister.”

What programme? What the hell were they talking about? “I’m sure it could.” His voice was tight, but he kept it even with an effort. “I’m equally sure it shouldn’t.”

On the screen, Davids stared at him thoughtfully the crease of a frown between his brows. “I don’t believe we engaged you to advise us on the results of your findings, Mr. McAllister, just to report on them.”

“But I just don’t think—”

“Good. We didn’t ask you to.”

Kier gritted his teeth and forced himself to relax in his chair. He saw Groven lean over and whisper in Davids’s ear.

“Mr. Groven has just made a good point. Perhaps if you are unsure about our decision to train Ms. Waring, you would like to undertake the job? Witness for yourself, firsthand, how effective our programme can be? I realise you are a freelancer, Mr. McAllister, and I can offer you say, another twenty percent on top of your usual rate.”

That was one hell of a lot of money. And the hermitage in the Pyrenees needed a new roof.

Who was he kidding?

He swallowed. His throat felt dry. This was crazy, unheard of. “Does she have a choice?” he asked.

“Mr. McAllister. Our influence extends far, as I’m sure you are aware. Did she have a choice when you took her to Scotland? We suggest you … persuade her.”

That thought made him feel sick to his stomach. He’d promised her freedom. Could he return and take it back? “And if I don’t do it, who will?”

Davids turned his mouth down, shrugged. “Craven. Or Williams. Perhaps Mr. Kendrick here will take on the job.”

Bastards, every one of them.

At least he could buy time. At least he could lull them into a false sense of security. And then? At the moment, he didn’t have an idea.

“I’ll do it,” he said. There was a flicker of something on Groven’s face, a faint suggestion of a change of expression. Kier knew without a shadow of a doubt right then, right at that moment, he wasn’t fooling them at all.

“Good. Excellent. Have Ms. Waring report to us on Monday,” said Davids with what Kier now saw was way too much joviality.

Kendrick was picking at his nails, but then he looked up and smiled straight into the camera.

“See you soon, McAllister,” said Kendrick. There was a flicker of some reaction on Groven’s face.

“Kendrick.” Kier nodded at the camera, and severed the connection.

Monday. Like hell. They were coming after her now—that was why they’d brought Kendrick in.
See you soon
. Yeah.

The chase was on.

He punched the number, steering with the other hand, flicking between looking at the road and looking at the cell phone display.

He put the phone to his ear, waiting for the connection. “Come on,” he muttered, letting go of the wheel to drop a gear and overtake a caravan.

It rang. Once. Twice. “Come on, Jenny, pick up. Pick it up, be a good girl …”

On the third ring she answered, a short, sharp, “Yes?”

“Jenny. It’s me.”

“How did it go? Where are you?”

“Shut up, Jenny, and listen.”

All she said was, “What’s wrong?”

“Go to the front door. Feel along the top edge of the door frame. You should feel a small ridge about a third of the way along from the left edge. Got it?”

Her voice was slightly muffled as she reached. “Got it. Feels just like a ridge of paint, yes?”

“That’s it. Push firmly and slide it to the left.”

The sound of some scuffling came to him, mingled with her short breaths as she stretched. The sound was all too intimate. He grit his teeth and focused on the road ahead.

“There’s a compartment underneath. There’s a key in it. Have you got it?” he asked. “Have you got it, Jenny?”

“Hang on.”
There was more scrabbling. “Yes. I’ve got it.” She sounded vaguely triumphant. “What’s going on, McAllister? Why have you given me the key? Are you not coming back? Where—”

“Damn it, Jenny, shut up and
listen!”

“Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”

At last.

“Listen carefully. You need to get this right. Go out of the cabin round to the back. There’s a drainpipe, a downpipe, on the back wall. Stand with your back to it, with it right between your shoulder blades and take two, no, wait, take three steps forward. Got that?”

“Back to drainpipe, three steps forward.”

“Kick around underfoot and you should uncover a metal box with a wooden and turf lid. If you’ve got it right you should be standing right over it. Just lift the lid to open it.

“Inside is a coat, a canvas bag, another smaller canvas bag and another cell phone. Open the small canvas bag. Inside it is a gun.”

“Oh, God.”

“Jenny,” he warned. “The gun is loaded, but the safety is on. Put it in your pocket. Handle it carefully. Make sure you can get to it if you have to. Put the coat on, and bring the other bag and the phone. Okay so far?”

“Yes. Pocket the gun; put on the coat; bring the other canvas bag.”

“Right. Then head down the track towards the road. Do you remember the way?”

“Yes. Up the hill and into the forest. Left, then right, and down to the road.”

“That’s it. Well done. Keep close to the trees. If you hear a vehicle at all, I want you to take cover and stay out of sight. Do you understand me?”