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 and tossed it on the front passenger seat. Underneath he wore a short-sleeved green shirt with epaulets, a coat of arms on the chest pocket. A real paramedic uniform? A tendril of a tattoo curled out from under a sleeve. Her pulse seemed to glitch as her memory filled in the rest of the mark. “It’ll take Hyland’s goons a while to put all that together, no matter what resources they have.”
She swallowed. “They have access to all the resources, according to Tess. Has something gone wrong, I mean, apart from the arrest? Charlotte...?”
“Is that your London contact? I don’t know.” He moved to the straps on her feet and began releasing them. Deciphering his thick accent was taking concentration, though just the timbre of it rolled through her chest and eased her breathing. “All I know is that I was the only one who could get here this quickly, so I was it.” It sounded like an apology, like he assumed he was the last man she’d want to see again. How wrong he was. “Flynn was sparing on details and obviously we’re needing to keep this operation contained, so...”
“This operation?” she said. “You’re making it sound even more terrifying.”
“Oh no, this is commonplace. We’re just couriers, yeah? Here to collect and deliver. Operation UPS. Angelito and Holly are trying to get away from some unpronounceable town in Eastern Europe but that’ll take a while. And Texas is waiting for a seat to come free on the Eurostar.”
Angelito. Flynn and Jamie’s capitaine, who’d helped her escape Ethiopia. “Holly...?”
“Angelito’s girlfriend.”
“She can be trusted?”
“She could come in pretty handy.” His brow creased. “I’ve been wondering how you were, where you were. Tess and Flynn assured me you were safe but wouldn’t say more.”
She inwardly winced. Was that censure in his voice? He’d made her promise to keep in touch. She’d crossed her fingers behind her back.
Call if you need me, he’d said, scrawling down his number as he’d stepped onto his train in a French town she could no longer name, to return to his base on Corsica. If you want me. I’ll come straightaway.
So many times she’d nearly relented, even once picking up a pay phone and dialing all but the last digit.
“They didn’t know where I was—it was safer for everyone that way,” she said. “I moved around a lot. And Hyland still caught up with me.” More than a year of being careful and it had very nearly been for nothing. “At least I assume the ambush in Tuscany was his doing?”
“Yes. You did well to get away.”
She sat up, blinking rapidly. “Does Hyland know why I’m in London, where I’m headed?”
“We’re certainly hoping not. But then, until a few hours ago we hadn’t expected all this, either. You might need to fill me in on the details of what we’re going to be doing. We’re picking up something?”
She liked the sound of “we.” But if Hyland’s thugs had her in their sights, what about Charlotte? “Awo, from Putney. I mean, yes. You might as well know everything.” She gave him a breathless rundown. God, there was a lot to explain—Tuscany, Charlotte, the postcard...
“Wow,” Jamie said, when she’d finished. “I hope this ‘gift’ will exonerate Tess and bring down Hyland.”
“So do I, but I honestly don’t know. This could all be for nothing.”
“Flynn seems to think it’s the only chance we have.”
“Dear God, don’t say that.”
The ambulance swerved. She grabbed the sides of the gurney. Jamie caught a yellow metal handhold.
“The ambulance,” she said. “How did you—?”
“Called in a...favor from a...friend.” He glanced at the driver, who was still on the radio. One hell of a favor. She caught the words assessing, respiratory and SOB.
“Did he just call you a son of a bitch?” she said.
A grin flickered across Jamie’s face. “SOB. Shortness of breath. But probably the other thing,