Page 134 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Timeline?” One asked.

“We move after the rover’s next call. That buys the longest gap he can give us.”

Three and Five shrugged into ghillie suits and disappeared into the dark, pieces of wet hedgerow carrying rifles.

“You know what this is, right?” Lance tightened his chin strap and pulled me aside. “The whole thing, start to finish?”

“A rescue.”

“You put yourself in your father’s debt for a woman you barely know.”

“I know.” I touched the pockets in the front of my carrier, reminding myself where everything was. “It’s love.”

“Took you long enough.” No grin with it this time. He gripped my shoulder once, hard. “Let’s go get her.”

I went first. My father had run a hundred nights like this from a warm room with a headset. If his men were going over a wall for me, I wasn’t doing it from the safety of cover and distance. I was going over it ahead of them. I set my hands on the coping and hauled myself over.

Light rain ticked on my helmet and wet grass soaked me to the knee.

The rover came around the hedge on his schedule. Two took his knees, I took his mouth, and Six had cuffs on him the second he was on the ground. Two pulled him—hooded, trussed, gagged, breathing—across the grass and out of sight of the house. Nobody died.

I unclipped the radio from his chest, yanked the coiled earpiece free, and handed them to Lance. He shoved the earpiece in and gave me a thumbs-up.

“Clock’s running,” I whispered over my team radio.

Our route passed below a bright room with stained-glass windows and bars—it must have held something important.

Two men held the western service door, splitting a dry patch under the overhang. They went down the same as the rover, fast and soft, and Six cuffed them back-to-back. We stripped the batteries from their radios and dragged the men across the lawn.

We filed into the dark corridor. Behind me came the click-click of someone keying a radio.

I glanced back.

Lance pointed at the rover’s radio and mouthed, ‘Kitchen. Food.’

The double-click usually meant the operator was too busy to answer. Did these men use the same signal?

Goddamn it.

We kept moving, pushing up the service staircase. We split at the top to check for a locked door with my woman behind it. I checked the first door while Lance headed down the hallway with Two.

The next door had a transom window over it, hanging wide open. None of the others were open. Why would this one be⁠—

Lance stopped suddenly and signaled us to halt. Over comms, he whispered, “They’re talking to the rover on the radio.”

Fuck.

Whoever was waiting for the rover to respond would be suspicious if he whispered. If Lance spoke any louder, he might draw unwanted attention from someone inside.

“Goin’ fer a piss,” Lance replied with a horrible Cockney accent. The accent was shit, but the excuse might work. Anyone could have said it.

Was it enough?

Lance swiveled to face me from down the hallway. “We’re burned.”

Double fuck.

Doors banged. Men’s voices rose. My breath cut out, and my body swung toward the noise before I’d decided anything. One raw half second where the night exploded, and the only picture in my head was a steel door closing with Gwen behind it. I crushed it flat. Put it inside the fist around my heart and ordered it to stay put. She needed a man who kept moving until she was safe.