Rifter (The Survival Project Duology Book 1) (23 page)

The real question was, did he think Mara worth dying for? It had to be clear to him now that death was a possibility. How many men would die for someone they’d only just met? Not many. It would be just his luck that Kerry was one of them.

Leo ran his hand along the barrel of the gun. Even if he couldn’t make himself fire it, no one else would know that. He had to take it with him.

When the reply came, he couldn’t help the smile that came to his lips. She had agreed to meet him at the coffee shop. He had just over an hour to get there. Plenty of time.

He got dressed in a t-shirt, jeans and his jacket. The jacket he’d worn to come to this world. He still had it. It still fit. It could hold everything he needed and it contained a kind of self-confidence. Wearing it made him feel good. Powerful. In control. Daring.

He brought up a map of the area along The Embankment where the coffee shop was located and walked himself through the surrounding streets one more time, making sure he hadn’t missed anything he could use, or they could use to thwart him. He knew the area, but not in a back-of-the-hand way. There were places people could hide, but there would always be that wherever you met up in London. It was like a warren of mismatched streets, not squared off and numbered like in the American cities. It was either good, or bad, depending on which side you were on, and what your intentions were.

He had to assume that Kerry would come with her, even though he’d explicitly said that she must come alone, and she’d agreed that she would. But if he placed himself carefully, Kerry wouldn’t be able to get close enough to help her without being seen. And there was something else. If he wasn’t trained in combat, he could be a hindrance rather than a help to Mara in any tight situation. She would have thought of that. He would have instructions to stay back.

He wondered if she’d guessed what he wanted.

No, if she had, she’d be stupid to come.

She was stupid to come anyway.

He rubbed his hand over the brac. If she thought she was getting it back, she was sorely mistaken. If she thought he was about to make a deal, she was living in cloud cuckoo land.

Forty-five minutes.

He called a cab, and headed straight there. He paid the driver a little extra to get him to wait. It wasn’t easy to find somewhere to wait in London, but he’d known there was a short-term bay around a side street just before the coffee shop. Just before, in terms of the direction from which he thought she’d be travelling, which was the nearest tube station. That assumption was a big part of his plans. If she came from the other direction, well, complete spur-of-the-moment improvisation was not his forte, as he had discovered over the past couple of days.

He got out of the cab and took up position at the corner of the street. He had a good view of people coming in both directions, good enough that he could duck into the recess if he saw them. The only issue, apart from her coming from the wrong direction, would be if she came in a cab, which he didn’t suppose she would. Cabs were expensive in the city and she still had a day to survive and probably not that much money left. Kerry, he was certain, wouldn’t have a lot of cash. It didn’t fit with his traveller profile.

Leo put his hand into his pocket. The handcuffs were still there. Of course, they were still there. He’d taken them out of the bedside cabinet and put them in his pocket only a few minutes earlier. He could feel them every time he moved his left leg. He also had the gun secreted in its holster, but he didn’t intend to use that openly. It would cause too much commotion and was far more likely to warrant some busybody making a call to the police. Most people simply ignored less violent attacks. And, it wouldn’t look like an attack, it would look like an arrest. If he acted with authority, he was unlikely to be questioned, and if he was, a quick flash of his ID would likely work.

The tension was getting to him. His palms were beginning to sweat. But he couldn’t have left it any later to get there.

It was Kerry he saw first, his head slightly above the other people milling along the street. Mara was walking a little behind, scanning left and right constantly. The two of them stopped. They had a conversation. Kerry had his phone in his hand, but he wasn’t making a call. They stood there for what seemed an eternity, as if there were some kind of disagreement about what they should do. They turned away. They were doing something, he just didn’t know what. It was okay. He’d be taking her before she went in. He had the element of surprise.

Kerry stayed where he was and she walked on. In fact, he moved a little further away, to where a paper seller’s stand blocked him from view.

No time to worry about that.

Mara strode with purpose in his direction. He counted the speed of her steps and estimated how many more it would take her to get to his location. Then, he ducked back and continued the count in his head. He was one too many, but his reactions were quick enough.

He grabbed both of her hands at once from behind and wrenched them together as he pulled her back behind the cover of the building. She screamed in pain, because he hadn’t been gentle, but no coherent words left her lips, like ‘help.’ A second later the handcuffs were deployed on the first wrist and then the second.

He didn’t look to see what Kerry was doing, the moments lost could be the difference between his plan succeeding and failing.

In one swift movement, he pushed Mara into the cab.

The cab driver’s face was a picture of dismay. Leo flashed his ID as an explanation and said, “Move. Back to the address we came from.”

He would’ve liked the cab driver to be going fast enough for his brakes to screech as he turned out onto the main street, but that was an impossibility on the London streets. He was going fast enough that he’d never be caught by someone running, at least. He risked a look behind. Way further back Kerry was running. Once they turned across the bridge, they’d easily lose sight of him, and him of them. He glanced at Mara. She looked a little scared, but not defeated. He turned back toward Kerry. He had stopped and was doubled over, winded. Perfect.

No. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

Mara was silent. She stared at him. He’d expected her to scream. It unsettled the balance of his thoughts that she was so calm.

His hands were shaking. He had no idea whether that was through fear or excitement, because those emotions were so entwined with each other in that moment, that he couldn’t have separated them if he’d tried.

“I can do this,” he said, and regretted it immediately. Mara could hear him. She would know he had doubts. She didn’t react.

They arrived outside the flat. He’d never seen a cab driver look so relieved that a passenger had gotten out of his vehicle. He almost had to throw money at the man. There had been no request for a fare, no typical banter. As he drove off, the man threw the money back out the window.

“It wasn’t blood money, it was Government issue,” he shouted. But the driver was too far away to hear. He left the notes fluttering in the breeze. Someone would be lucky that day.

There was the risk the cab driver would call the police, but that didn’t matter any more. He had her.

He pulled Mara toward the door and fished in his pocket for his keys. He needed to get her legs bound because, he knew full well, she had a vicious kick when she was angry.

“Stop it,” he yelled, but she didn’t, she was putting all her energy into each thrust of her leg against his, trying to knock him down. He railroaded her against the wall, lifting her slightly from the ground. “Stop it,” he said again. She froze. It had to be the menace in his voice. She looked at him as if she’d never known him. She probably hadn’t. Not really.

As the door clicked open, he heard screeching brakes behind him. He turned, pulling Mara in front of him as a barrier. He saw a smile on her face. She’d already seen.

“What the …?” he said. And then he knew. He hadn’t been the clever one, or, at least, not the only clever one. She had concocted a plan as well. One that involved giving him up to The Department, and probably herself into the bargain.

Clever. He hadn’t foreseen her doing that. No matter.

The sight of Atwood walking toward him, gun raised, only deepened his resolve.

“Well played,” he said to Mara, viciously pulling her through the door and kicking it closed behind him, “But not well enough.” He pushed her over to the stairs and took out his own gun. He pointed it at her, not Atwood. His partner wouldn’t risk firing through glass, and possibly distorting the path of his shot, with her so close.

“Up. Now,” he indicated the stairs with the gun. He didn’t want to get caught in the lift if they happened to be quick enough to cut the power. He assumed they’d do that.

She didn’t resist.

Standard hostage protocol. Don’t risk your life until you know you can get free.

He took one last look at the glass door and he saw Kerry standing behind Atwood.

“Bad girl. Didn’t Gordon ever tell you to never tell anyone your true background?” he said, and followed her up the stairs.

Thirty

Mara lay motionless on the bed. The formal tie that Leo had used as a gag pressed hard against her tongue. Her mouth was dry. It made her want to cough, but even that she found difficult. Her hands were still secured behind her back by the handcuffs and her feet were now bound as well with a length of rope. She hadn’t made that easy for him, but without the use of her arms, eventually she’d lost the battle. She wasn’t afraid. The cavalry were outside and she knew more about the situation than he did. She wondered why they were letting it play out, other than the danger of both her and Leo being killed in the process. That had to be it. They were scared they’d be left without a rifter. They couldn’t risk that.

There was little she could do but roll over on the bed, or hop around the room, and neither of those would help her situation much. They’d probably worsen it, because he would hear her efforts and come back into the room to sort her out. He’d secure her even tighter. Perhaps, tie her to the bed. He might even knock her out, but she doubted that. He needed her awake and able to move, she was sure of it. She wondered exactly how many hours it was now. Less than twenty-four, for certain.

She’d never seen him like this before. He’d never been that much of a social creature, true, but it was like he was a different man, even from the one she’d met the day before. The streak of angry violence within him had intensified and she didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it blew up further.

However, it was her who had chosen this outcome, even if it wasn’t how she’d expected things to pan out. Leo should have been in custody by now. He’d surprised them all with the handcuffs and taxi routine.

He hadn’t voiced his plans, but she knew what they were. There was no way he could escape the flat on his own and make his way to the park. The exits were blocked. He had one option. Use a hostage. He had two of those.

It seemed a little excessive. She hoped he didn’t consider Mayra dispensable.

She wondered how much the other woman knew about her now, or Leo’s past, if anything.

Mayra. Her almost double, was lying next to her on the bed, similarly bound and gagged.

There was terror in the other woman’s eyes.

It wasn’t a good situation.

If they were going to get out of this, they needed to work together. How could you communicate that you weren’t an enemy, if all you could do was grunt?

When they’d called Leo’s office, all she’d had to say on the call was, “Hi, I’m Mara, the woman who came through the rift,” and there had been an immediate flurry of activity in the background. It was like every call was monitored. She’d explained what Leo was up to, which didn’t surprise them, and the plan had been to take him at the coffee shop. She hadn’t tried to bargain for her freedom, stopping Leo was too important for there to be conditions.

It had taken less than twenty minutes before a car was with them at the hostel.

They were all in agreement. Leo could not go back.

She was to go to the coffee shop, meet Leo, and suggest they go for a walk — bring him out into the open — and they would take it from there. Except it hadn’t worked out like that. He’d been cleverer than them, or just lucky. Maybe, if they’d had more time to scout, they’d have seen him in the alleyway.

Not that it mattered too much. They all knew where he was now.

Honestly, she was surprised that he’d taken her back to the flat, but that was because she knew The Department had been called. He’d obviously intended to hole himself up until dark and then play his hostage card. Or hostages. Which he could still do, obviously. He just had to do it with an escort.

She still didn’t understand how he could harbour so much hate against Gordon. This kind of thing should never have happened. They’d done enough personality tests during their training at The Facility. They’d all enacted the scenario where they didn’t come home. Had he simply been clever enough to fool them?

Clearly, he had.

Either that, or personality tests weren’t worth the bytes to store them.

The reality was, he’d ended up in a much better world, even if it wasn’t perfect, and he had the knowledge to help them improve their lot. He’d had so much to give and he’d thrown it all away on revenge.