Chapter 30

“Oy! What’re you doing there?”

Steven hung his head and muttered a curse before quickly gathering his wits and fiddling with the laces on his shoe. He had been sure he had seen…

But no. Christian Watson was dead, right? After he’d left the SAS, he’d vanished without a trace, which everyone assumed meant he’d met a bitter end. And that meant the tall, dark-haired bloke who had sauntered into Rusty Parker’s house was nothing more than a look-alike. A phantom from Steven’s past come to bite him on the ass when he least expected it or, for that matter, needed it.

“Hey, you!” the young man in the baseball cap cocked at a rakish angle called again. Baggy jeans, bad skin, and patchy facial hair put him anywhere from sixteen to twenty. “I asked what you’re doing there!”

And by there, the little shite meant crouched beside the Vauxhall Corsa parked across the street from Parker’s townhouse.

“New shoes.” Steven shrugged and offered the kid a wan smile. “The bloody laces won’t stay tied. Seems I’m kneeling to redo them every other block.”

The young man’s expression softened. “Try double knots,” he offered, fishing in his trousers for a set of keys. Once he found them, he pressed a button and the car chirped to life, its lights flashing.

After showily double knotting his laces, Steven stood and moved away from the car, careful to keep an eye on the house across the way. He could see nothing through the shuttered windows. The louvers were open, but it would take getting up close and personal with the property to see in.

“Sorry I yelled at you, mate,” the kid said. “But I’ve had my rims nicked once already. I’m not looking to replace them again. They cost a bloody fortune.”

Steven glanced at the rims under discussion. They sparkled in the light of the setting sun, looking like something a rapper would put on his tricked-out Cadillac, not something that belonged on a lime-green hatchback.

“Bad luck, that,” he commiserated, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and trying to look unthreatening.

“Mmm.” The kid nodded. “Well, I’m off to the market. Mum’s screaming mad that Dad didn’t replace the milk after he had the last of it this morning. She’s to bake fresh biscuits for some party at my baby sister’s school tomorrow.”

“Mums. What would we do without them, eh?”

His mother’s own sweet face flashed through his mind. Even after the stroke, she was still a beautiful woman. Her unlined face full of the grace and kindness she had shown him growing up. If she knew what he was doing, she would—

He ripped the thought out of his mind and tossed it away like a cancer.

“I’ll tell you what I would do.” The kid’s lips twisted into a wry grin. “I’d stay out late every night getting pissed.”

Steven laughed. “Well, there’s that, I suppose.”

“Right. Later, then.” The kid waved, hopped into his eye-bleeding monstrosity of a car, and quickly drove away.

Steven glanced left and right down the quiet street. A few blocks up the way, Morrison and his driver sat in the black SUV. Steven could feel the old man’s eyes on him, boring into him, even though the tinted windows reflected nothing but the deepest, darkest black.

“Nothing for it,” he muttered to himself, pulling up the collar on his mac. To Americans, that word meant a brand of computer; to Brits, it was a kind of trench coat. Then he tugged the brim of his black wool newsboy cap low on his brow. Careful to keep his chin down, his eyes on the ground, he crossed the street.

Getting close to Parker’s house was easy. The three-story structure sat on the sidewalk, a set of whitewashed steps leading up to the front door. Getting a gander into the first-floor windows was another matter entirely. It required that Steven belly up to the house and rise on tiptoes.

And that won’t be conspicuous at all, he thought sourly.

With another look around at the merry golden glow in the windows of the houses, he hoped the neighborhood’s residents were too busy preparing dinner to take notice of a Peeping Tom. Blowing out a breath, he grabbed a windowsill and did a quick up-and-down peek-a-roo. Nothing but comfortable furniture, deeply polished floors, and a big flat-screen TV that sparked an ember of envy.

Fecking hell. The empty room meant he had to check the next window.

Trying to keep up casual pretenses was impossible. So he hurried around the front steps and over to the only other first-floor window. Bingo! A low murmur of voices hummed from behind the glass. The conversation was too muffled to make out, but no matter. He wasn’t there as a spy. He was there to ascertain whether Chelsea Duvall and her merry band of masked men—and hopefully the thumb drive—were on the premises.

Up and down he went again. But this time, the downward motion took him all the way into a crouch. Fear and confusion made his heart beat out a rabbit-fast rhythm.

It was Christian Watson he had seen. The Christian Watson. Not that he had ever met the man in person, but he had seen Watson’s picture plenty of times. The man was famous inside the ranks of the SAS. He was supposedly one of the greatest officers to ever wear the Special Air Services sand-colored beret. Tough. Ruthless. Brilliant—although there was some speculation that he’d been part of that bad business in Iraq known as the Kirkuk Police Station Incident. Regardless, he was…assumed dead!

Holy shit! What’s he doing mucking about in all this?

Steven’s mind buzzed around possibilities like a bee in a garden. A poisonous garden. Because every reason he could imagine for why and how Watson would be there was worse than the one before it, and—

The rumble of a car muffler in need of repair snagged his attention mid-thought. Even though the sun had set, it threw ambient pink and purple light into the sky. It was enough to show the approaching vehicle was a pickup truck. The kind of hulking monstrosity that ate petrol by the liter. The kind of thing Rusty Parker drove.

You can take the man out of America, but you can’t take the American out of the man, Steven thought bitterly, quickly pushing away from the house and heading up the block toward the waiting SUV.

His adrenaline-filled veins urged him to hurry. But training and self-control kept him at a steady pace. He was careful to pass Morrison and his driver and continue up the block. Only after he heard the truck’s big engine quietly ticking as it cooled, and the squeak of the front door to the house, did he turn around and start back toward Morrison’s vehicle.

He hopped into the backseat, and the old man wasted no time demanding, “Well? Is she in there?”

Steven nodded, his mind still racing.

“Go get her, then. Get that bloody thumb drive and be done with it.”

It was difficult to keep the incredulity from his face, but Steven managed it. Or, at least, he hoped he did. “And how would you suggest I do that? There is only one of me, and there are five of…no, correction…there are six of them.”

“So call the local constable.” Morrison flapped his hand through the air in that way that made Steven want to throttle him. “Tell them about the APW, and let them apprehend her and turn her over to Scotland Yard. Then we’ll get her.”

“These local authorities aren’t equipped to deal with the men in that house,” Steven said, his tone brooking no argument. “Those bastards are well-trained, which means they know all about escape and evasion.” Especially Christian Watson. “They’ll find a way to outmaneuver the backwater police force here. Mark my words. And then they’ll know we’re on their trail. Our element of surprise will be lost.”

Morrison narrowed his eyes, considering. Then he shrugged. “So then you know what to do.”

“Yes.” Steven nodded and fished the phone from his trouser pocket.

He hadn’t wanted to do it. He’d wanted to solve the problem himself. But now… Well, now he was forced to admit he needed help. With fingers he was disgusted to note were trembling, he dialed the number sure to have backup headed his way.