The Kill Shot (18 page)

“Yes,” I replied, and tried to smile.

Because, for a whole host of reasons, I was more than ready to leave Philip's apartment.

I just wasn't sure I was ready to leave him.

In the back of Philip's car, I wrapped up any feelings I had about leaving London and stuffed them so deep into my heart, it would've taken a pirate with a treasure map to dig them out. In the meantime, Philip made a million phone calls. At least, to me, riding beside him in the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, that's what it felt like.

Blatantly, I listened to his conversations, but I couldn't quite ferret out who was on the other end of them. At times, Philip seemed to be giving orders. At others, he seemed to be receiving them.

In any case, he said next to nothing to me.

And I said little to him.

We hit Heathrow just short of mid-morning. Business was brisk in the Departures terminal. Everyone—from business travelers to tourists—was in motion under the arching steel spine of the airport's architecture. Everyone, that is, except Barrett, Katie, and the Oujdads. We found them exactly where I'd left them, glued to a set of seats not far from our ticket counter.

A slipstream of humanity rushed past them on both sides. And ran interference between us. I had to pause for a toddler who'd run away from his harried mother, and again for a little old lady pulling her knitting behind her in a wheeled carry-on.

When I paused for her, though, I noticed the only other person in the terminal who wasn't in a hurry to get elsewhere. The man wore a black suit and a tan trench coat, and he would've been totally forgettable if not for the black-framed sunglasses he wore indoors.

He was taller than Helmet Head and leaner through the frame, so that was a comfort. But he was just as interested in my traveling companions. The flat, black lenses of his shades never left them as he hovered near the corner of a newsstand.

Philip's eye swept over him. And Philip's step slowed. With determination, he looked away—and at anything else.

Something about my old friend's reaction made anxiety nibble the nape of my neck. But we'd reached the seating area by then. And that gave me other things to worry about.

Barrett stood to greet us. He didn't appear happy to see me in Philip's company. Armand was unnaturally pale, but at least he regarded us with shadowed eyes. Ikaat, on the other hand, had given herself a hug—and forgotten to let go. She didn't acknowledge our arrival at all.

Katie clutched her ever-present cell phone in a death grip, slung her arms around me in a big, fat hug. “Boy, am I glad to see you! Lieutenant Colonel Barrett thinks we're being watched.”

Lieutenant Colonel Barrett was right.

But I didn't tell Katie that.

Instead, I said, “Doesn't matter. We'll be in the air soon. Mr. Spencer-Dean has agreed to arrange it.”

“Indeed,” my old friend said. “First, however, Ms. deMarco and I need to take a walk. Isn't that right, Ms. deMarco?”

Katie hesitated, shot a questioning look at me.

And I couldn't blame her.

I glanced toward the newsstand. The Anonymous Man hadn't moved. His sunglasses still took in our little sideshow.

“Philip, I don't think a walk is such a hot idea—”

But he'd already seized Katie's upper arm, steered her toward the ticket counter.

Barrett seized mine when I started after them.

“Let them go,” Barrett advised.

Philip talked as they walked. Katie listened. When she replied, it dawned on me. As young as she was, and as inexperienced as she might be, Katie was the U.S. State Department representative in this sticky business. And Philip spoke for the Foreign Office.

So this wasn't a social stroll.

It was an international negotiation.

Maybe Philip didn't want to leave Heathrow empty-handed. Maybe he was demanding Barrett's arrest in exchange for putting the rest of us on the plane. The idea made me queasy.

But then Philip and Katie reached the ticket counter.

Apparently, they'd reached some kind of agreement as well.

Philip spoke to the ticket agent. The ticket agent snatched up his phone. I tried to read his lips from where I stood, but I couldn't quite manage it.

Philip and Katie returned to us. Their faces were as long as if they'd each lost their argument. But that couldn't be.

Yet, Katie wouldn't meet my eye. Philip seemed cold and remote. He swallowed hard, and I got the impression he was about to pass a death sentence.

“We must move quickly,” he told us. “Your flight is boarding.”

He crooked a finger and one of those overgrown airport golf carts zoomed over to us. Barrett wasted no time hustling Katie and the Oujdads into the first and second row of seats. But Philip snagged my arm before I could climb on.

As a result, he and I ended up in the rumble seat together.

“Jamie,” he began.

But whatever he was about to say was too close to personal. And I didn't dare hear it. To make matters worse, at my back, I sensed Barrett listening with his entire being, even as he kept a lookout while we rode through the airport.

Our cart careened around a corner, pulled up to a Departures gate. Airline staff scurried from a computer terminal to the boarding pass scanner and back again with clipboards in hand. Men with laminated pass cards dangling from their necks prepared to close the door to the gangway—and although we'd left the Anonymous Man at the newsstand behind, his spittin' image now stood with his back to the wide window overlooking our aircraft on the tarmac.

Compared to the creep we'd left near the ticket counter, this guy's suit and trench coat were completely different. That's to say, rather than black and tan, they were blue and beige. The sunglasses, though, were the same.

So was his silent stare.

“Who is he?” I asked Philip. “Scotland Yard? MI5? Is he going to pull Barrett off that plane for what he did to Dalmatovis?”

“He's the devil incarnate.” Philip's fingers tightened around mine. “Listen to me. That man's very presence means the case has altered—”

But Katie was already in motion, out of the cart and assisting Armand from his seat. Ikaat clambered after her father, her chest rising and falling as if she might hyperventilate. Barrett took her arm.

“Jamie,” he called, “we've got to go.”

I couldn't look at Philip anymore. I hopped from the cart. I just didn't get very far—because Philip hadn't let go of my hand.

“Jamie,” he insisted. “Don't go.”

Now, I couldn't bear to look at Barrett. I was sure he'd heard Philip. I could feel his stony expression from where I stood.

“Look at your compatriots,” Philip reasoned. “The old man is dehydrated at the very least, and Dr. Oujdad is in shock. I'll take all of you to a safe house. In a day or so, I'll charter a plane and send you to the States myself.”

But delaying our trip for even a minute would be too long, according to my father's reckoning.

And after all the dangers we'd encountered, it would be too long according to mine.

I shook my head. “I have to get on that plane.”

Philip pulled me to him, pitched his voice too low for Barrett to hear. But the note of panic in it reached me loud and clear. “Then let them go. Jamie, I implore you. Stay with me one more day.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Katie and Armand were halfway down the gangway. Not so steadily, Ikaat followed them close behind. Barrett, though, remained at the on-ramp's door. His features had settled into that impassive cop's mask. I couldn't tell what he was thinking as he watched me with Philip, and after all he'd done in London, I had no idea what he was feeling.

But I didn't need to be psychic to read Philip's mind.

If looks could kill, the glare Philip shot Barrett would've murdered him on the spot.

“Jamie, tell me you don't prefer Lieutenant Colonel Barrett to me. Tell me you won't join him on that plane.”

But I couldn't tell him that.

“Listen to me, Jamie. I'm in love with you. Doesn't that mean something to you? Don't
I
mean something to you?”

Of course he did.

“You and I are two of a kind.”

But there's Barrett,
my traitorous heart whispered.
What about Barrett?

“Stay with me,” Philip insisted.

Frustration? Guilt? Both pushed me to the point of tears.

“Jamie, you don't understand—”

“Mr. Spencer-Dean.” The twin of the Anonymous Man had left his post by the window. He glided past us like a ghost. “It's final call.”

His pronouncement got my rear in gear—even if it couldn't straighten out the knot in my heart.

I tore my hand from Philip's. “I've got to go. I'll call you when I reach Virginia.”

Without another word, I left Philip's side. Without a backward glance, I boarded the plane. Somehow, I found my seat. And as our Boeing 777 rumbled down the runway and climbed through the stratosphere, I tried to turn off my brain. I tried to block out my feelings.

I'd done the right thing by getting on this plane. I knew I had. I had a professional responsibility to Katie and Ikaat, to Ikaat's father and my own.

In the heat of the moment, Philip had asked me to shirk that.

But that wasn't what bothered me.

No, I had to face facts. It was Philip's desperation that had rocked me to my socks. But why? Because I didn't love him? Because my track record with love and marriage suggested I couldn't love anyone? Or because I might be in love with someone else?

Without wanting to, I glanced at the seat in front of me—and the back of Barrett's blond head.

The plane hit its cruising altitude. I snatched a magazine from the pocket in front of me and flipped through it restlessly. I was too antsy to read, too wired to snooze.

In the seat beside me, Ikaat dozed in an unsteady sleep. I wondered if she was dreaming of America—or having a nightmare. Past her, against the window, her father rested with his eyes closed and his mouth open. In the row ahead of us, Katie's head was bent over her smartphone. I only hoped she had the thing in airplane mode.

Next to her, on the aisle, Barrett remained still. Until the
FASTEN SEAT BELTS
sign blinked off. Then, with a word to Katie, he rose.

He stepped into the aisle, crouched beside my seat. “What did your friend Spencer-Dean have to say?”

“What?”

I hadn't thought Barrett heard the words Philip had meant only for me. I hadn't thought he heard Philip plead with me. I hadn't—

“You told him about the house outside Cambridge, didn't you?”

“Oh, right.” Something akin to relief had me huffing out a breath. “He said he'd look into it.”

Barrett frowned. “So, to translate, he already knows what's going on there.”

“You know, you make an awful lot of accusations against a guy who's helped you out a time or two. He's the reason you're on this plane and not in a holding cell.”

“Yeah, he's also the reason I look like I walked into a swinging door.” Barrett touched a finger to the black bruise under his eye. “Think about it, Jamie. That's not some private citizen camped out in that country house. Not with all that heavy hardware.”

“You're saying the British government snatched Ikaat's father? To what end? To convince Ikaat to stay in England?”

Barrett shrugged.

I rolled my eyes—in part because in his apartment, I, too, had accused Philip of maneuvering to keep Ikaat in the country. But that was ridiculous. He wouldn't do such a thing.

He and I were two of a kind.

“When we touch down,” Barrett warned, “don't be surprised if we're met at the plane.”

I nodded. I'd already figured as much. A combination of State Department officials and CIA suits would want to welcome Ikaat the second she stepped onto American soil. And they'd want to whisk her to a secure location for questioning as soon as possible. They'd be good to her, of course. But I doubted it would be anything like she'd imagined the welcome to her new homeland would be.

“There's one more thing,” Barrett said. “When we reach Dulles, I'm done.”

Done.
The word made my mouth run dry. But then my temper flared. Because Barrett had chosen a shitty time to tell me he wasn't interested anymore. Just as Philip had chosen the shittiest moment to profess his love. In short, each man had ambushed me. And ambushes were rarely accidental.

But then Barrett's hand covered mine. I realized I was clutching the armrest in a stranglehold. And that he hadn't meant goodbye at all.

He said, “I'll have to report in. There'll be a debriefing, but your father won't expect anything more from me after that.”

I thought of my father. Of how he'd sent me to London and cut me loose once the going got tough. Of how any communication between us would've ruined his precious plausible deniability. He'd had very specific plans for me the night he'd visited me at my townhouse. I could see that now. Now that Barrett had proven his abilities, my father would have very specific plans for such a smart and able soldier, too.

I said, “You don't know my father very well.”

“I don't need to.” Barrett's thumb stroked the back of my hand. “It's his daughter I'm interested in.”

Anything I might've said got swallowed up by a groan and grind that tore through the aircraft. Beside me, Ikaat jerked awake. Leaning across her father, she pressed her face to the window.

When she turned to me, her eyes were as round as cat's-eye marbles.

I peered across her and along the airplane's wing. Smoke, black and billowing, poured from the jet engine at the wing's tip. While I watched, the engine's casing ripped open and blew away. The turbine's blades stuttered and stopped before flying loose to slam into the fuselage again and again. The plane shuddered with the repeated impact—and it wobbled without its fourth engine.

And I wasn't the only one to notice.

Throughout the cabin, frightened passengers buzzed like scared mosquitoes.