CHAPTER FOUR
JAMIESCRAMBLEDONTOthe front passenger seat and peered up. The helo was an MH-6 Little Bird—not here for sightseeing. Shite. Must have been on standby. Hired from a local military contractor? Hyland had to be desperate to throw that kind of resource at Samira.
He clapped a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Change of plans. Go straight to Saint Jude’s A&E, on blue. Make it look like a real emergency.”
“It will be unless you take your hand off me.” Andy flicked on the siren.
“And radio into the hospital. See if anybody I’d know is on duty.”
“You mean someone you have dirt on?”
“Preferably.”
“Great. So I just casually ask, ‘Oh, and is there anyone there who’s been fucked over by James Armstrong?’ and see how many dozens of hands go up?”
Shut it, Andy. Not in front of her.“Maybe a touch more subtle.” He gave Andy’s shoulder a double pat and pushed back between the seats. Andy got on the radio, the siren wailing.
Jamie had been gone five years. Most of his med school and hospital friends—not that they would use the wordfriendsanymore, if they ever had—would have moved on, moved up. Even if they hadn’t forgiven him, they’d surely have forgotten.
Samira was staring at the roof of the ambulance as if she had X-ray vision.“On blue?”She lowered her wide brown eyes to meet his gaze.
“Lights on, top speed.”
She clicked her seat belt on. “You’re planning to outrun a helicopter?”
“Just the vehicles they’ll be directing. When you’re the bug about to go under the boot, best you can do is slip between the floorboards. Even they wouldn’t risk opening fire on a London Ambulance, not this close to Westminster, no matter how deep their contacts go here. They’ll want to keep it relatively low-key. We can play that to our advantage.” If the enemy knew the city, the Peugeot would already be backtracking to London Bridge to cross the Thames rather than waiting for the drawbridge.
“Vehicles.There are more than one?”
The ambulance swerved. He clutched an overhead handrail.
“Jamie, don’t think you have to keep anything from me, because of the...because of earlier. It’s the surprises that throw me.”
Her knuckles blanched where they gripped the seat belt. But she was right. She was tougher than her panic attacks might suggest. “I counted three cars when I was setting up to pull you out. We should assume there are more.” He made a point of keeping his tone casual and confident, like he had it all under control. And he did so far. More or less.
“I thought we were avoiding the hospital?”
“Just passing through. The place is a maze. We’ll lose them there and come up with another plan to get to your friend’s place.” He dropped volume and nodded toward Andy, who was straining to decipher the voice at the other end of the radio. “To the authorities, to Hyland, this all has to look authentic for Andy’s sake, like a real response to a nine-nine-nine call, like you just cleverly hoodwinked the system.”
“So he’s an innocent pawn?”
“A pawn, aye. Innocent, no.” Even so, Jamie wouldn’t leave his former crewmate in the shit again. Last time it’d been merely a lucky escape from unemployment—or worse. “As long as we keep ahead of the ground troops between here and the hospital, we’ll be fine.”
She nodded, buying his attempt at reassurance. He sure was good at sounding confident when really he had no idea. Maybe all that medical training was useful for something.
He checked his watch. The wave of Saturday night drunks and pill-poppers would have passed through the emergency department and the advance guard of sports injuries would be limping in. Not peak time but there’d be a few ambulances coming and going. If they timed it right, the chopper wouldn’t know which Merc to follow out of the ambulance bay—or know if Samira was still in it.
“Harriet Davies is the consultant on,” Andy said, ending his call. “You remember her?”
Jamie smiled. “Perfect.”
“Ah, shit, not her, too. Is there anyone you didn’t fuck over?”
Samira’s eyebrows shot up.
“He’s joking,” Jamie whispered.
They drove on, the engine alternating between a whine and a roar as Andy slowed and accelerated. Jamie watched for enemy vehicles as the landmarks flashed by, so familiar he could be stuck in a dream about his past—a Tesco’s supermarket, a redbrick church, squat terraced houses and dreary office blocks, graffitied rail bridges, the Shard jutting up like a great glass splinter. Still the same South London in the same grimy brick and concrete. But he no longer belonged.
