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“Copy that.”
I was already on my way out by the time Pinch rang off.
When I arrivedat Vauxhall Cross, headquarters for the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, Pinch was already there.I cringed when Wren Whittaker, Z’s daughter, walked in a few seconds after I did.
The woman was absolutely entitled to be there, to know her father might be in danger.However, she and her husband, Wilder, who’d been MI5’s interim DG before Pinch and who I’d also worked for, had a six-month-old baby girl.
Wilder had given me my code name.My last name was Marietta, and he’d initially called me Georgia.Eventually, it was shortened to George.
Wren approached and put her arm through mine.“How’re you holdin’ up, George?”she asked.Unlike her father, who had been raised in the UK, Wren grew up in Texas, where her mother was from, and she had a definitive Texan drawl.While I wouldn’t consider Wren a close friend, we were more than acquaintances.
“I’d ask you the same,” I said.
“Worried, but not more so than you.I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen my daddy as excited as he was when he called me earlier today.”
“I’d no idea he was so unhappy at MI6,” I murmured, looking over at Pinch, who was studying his phone.
“MI6 has nothin’ to do with it, George.He was excited about your plans tonight.”
“It was just dinner,” I said almost in a whisper.
Wren shook her head.“That’s not the way he saw it.To him, it was the beginning of a new life.I shouldn’t tell you this, but…”
“Butwhat?”
“Z asked me to pick up some things for him and deliver them to the townhouse.”
“Things?”
“Clothes.For you.So if you, you know, ended up back at his place, you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, you know…after.”
I was mortified.“Wren, I’m so sorry.I’d no idea?—”
“Please don’t apologize.The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve never heard my father sound as happy or excited as he was about your date.When I say that, for him, it was the beginning of a new life, I mean it.He wanted a life with you, George.”
My heart clenched, and I blinked away threatening tears.I’d shared his eager anticipation and was fraught with worry for him.My heartache was profound, thinking that something horrible may have happened to him when we were right on the verge of finally being able to explore the attraction between us.“Excuse me,” I muttered, hurrying to the loo, knowing I could no longer stop my tears from falling.
“Where in the bloody hell are you, Z?”I said out loud once I was certain there was no one else in the restroom.
3
Z
Once the vehicle we were in entered a less-populated part of the city, the masked driver pulled to the side of the road.Puck kept his gun aimed at me while the other man exited the car, came around to the back passenger door, blindfolded me, then bound my wrists and ankles.He removed my mobile, watch, wallet, and firearm—all four of which Puck was aware of—thus eliminating all but one tracking option someone could use to locate me.
Puck held up his SIS-issued mobile.“Under his right arm,” he muttered.
The man who’d bound me opened two buttons on my dress shirt, reached through the short sleeve of my undershirt, and felt beneath my arm, removing the small disc affixed to my skin.
I couldn’t see his face, and there was nothing else I recognized about him.My best guess was he worked for another intelligence agency.Until he spoke, if he did, I’d have no way of determining which it might be.
It occurred to me Puck’s mobile had been discovered on the Maltese island of Gozo.Apparently, he’d transferred his tracking information to another unit, which was the one he’d left behind.Also obvious was that any other tracking devices he’d had were either disengaged or destroyed.And that meant his disappearance and my abduction were premeditated.
Based on the direction we’d traveled from my flat, ascertained before I was blindfolded, and the length of the remainder of the drive, I suspected I was being taken somewhere in the vicinity of Northampton.
The city was the southernmost tip of what was known as the golden triangle of distribution, given ninety percent of Britain’s population could be reached within a four-hour drive.The significance of which was that the area contained close to one hundred and fifty thousand square feet of warehouse space—making it an ideal place to hold someone captive.
Upon our arrival, I relied on other senses—smell and hearing—to gather mental clues as to where we were.The white noise intrinsic to constantly running machinery, along with the slight ammonia or sulfur smell associated with diesel exhaust, substantiated my theory regarding our location.
