3.
VIKRAM
Vikram followed Cassandra down the corridor of the hotel, eyes scouring everything in sight for anything amiss. This was the bit he was good at, the bit he knew. Protecting and preventing things from happening.
Sitting in her hotel room and talking to her was the difficult part. It was too personal, and the lines were blurred too easily.
He’d never touched a client like that before. He had no idea what had possessed him to do it then. She hadn’t seemed to think it was a big deal. He was over thinking things, as normal.
His mentor had told him that his entire job was about pushing back his instincts until they were necessary, and so whenever he acted beyond his remit it felt like he was letting Ballar down.
They reached another door and Cassandra hesitated only slightly before knocking. He couldn’t quite place her yet. She seemed strong and weak all at once.
“Miranda! It’s me. It’s Cassie.”
Cassie, not Cassandra. He made a mental note.
The door inched open. “Cassie,” said Miranda, opening it wider. “How are you doing?”
Her smile was tight. “Yeah. I’m doing okay.”
Miranda peered around further and saw him. “Who is that?”
“This is Vikram. He’s my bodyguard for the rest of the conference.”
“Wow. The director didn’t send me a bodyguard.”
Cassie gave a small laugh. “It’s just precaution. I’m sure he’ll just be bored trailing me and listening to speeches all day and never having to lift a finger.” She smiled at him, and he wondered why she was different from everyone else he’d guarded.
Admittedly he wasn’t a veteran of the job yet. He’d been working at Suytov Planet Security since he was sixteen years old, like most of their recruits, but years of that was training. He hadn’t had his first job until he was twenty-three. He’d been held back from being assigned someone for a few years longer than most. He’d struggled with the emotional side of it, to the point where he thought he was going to have to give up, but Ballar had set him straight, and eventually he’d been qualified as a full-time bodyguard.
And all his charges up until this point had been middle-aged politicians who always had at least one other guard as well as him. He operated as a complete shadow in their lives, never speaking to them except when necessary.
He definitely didn’t get smiled at in public by any of his previous charges.
“Did you want to come in?” Miranda asked.
“Not if you don’t want. I’m mostly here to ask if you could get the media together. I’m ready to make my statement about Archie. I don’t want to bug you, I know I’m more than ready to just curl up and be left alone by everyone.”
Miranda didn’t seem as upset by it as Cassie did, though. She was chewing her lip and frowning, but it didn’t go posture deep. They couldn’t have been as close; she was just an aide, not his second-in-command. “I can do that. I can get everyone together beside the big fountain in the lobby for—” she paused to check her watch, “—two o’clock?”
“Perfect. I won’t keep you.” Cassie squeezed Miranda’s hands. “I hope you’re okay.”
“I’m coping.”
“We’ll talk properly tomorrow, when it’s not as fresh.”
They said their goodbyes and Miranda closed the door. “I feel awful for her,” she said as they walked back down the corridor. “When you go out of the field and into the office you don’t expect to see things like that anymore. You feel like you’ve seen enough death for a lifetime.”
“She’ll be okay.” Vikram believed it was true. “Death just takes some time to get over.”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and stood at the doors of the elevator. “I’ve got ten minutes until the press are going to be waiting for me. I’ve never done this before.” Her knuckles were white as she clutched her phone in her hand. The clock ticked another minute closer to two. “Archie was always the one who dealt with the journalists. He knew what he was doing. I’ve always hated it.” She chewed her lip until it bled, and Vikram felt helpless as he watched her. “Archie was better at all of this stuff than me. I was just along for the ride. What am I going to do now?”
Tears formed in her eyes and Vikram warred between what he knew he was supposed to do, coldly tell her it was fine, or even just ignore her, and the instinct that screamed at him to just go and give her a hug.
He went for something in between. He placed his hands on her shaking shoulders, and squeezed. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, voice as soothing as he could make it. “You wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think you could do it.” He hoped that was true, and that he wasn’t assuming things about their relationship that weren’t true. He might have been an evil old bastard who tore her down at every available opportunity. He doubted she’d be so upset if that were the case, though.
She sniffled. “I hadn’t finished learning yet. I was supposed to shadow him for another twenty years before I was put here. I can’t do it. I should have let the director send me someone who knew what they were doing.”
He squeezed her shoulders again, soft beneath his hands. “I read your speech. It was good. You only need to be in front of the press for a minute, tops. Don’t answer any questions.” He’d been guard to so many politicians he’d absorbed this information as the facts of life. He sat in on strategy meetings, and unlike most of his colleagues, couldn’t manage the head space where he ignored everything that was actually being said and let his imagination run wild. He was always keyed into the conversation, taking everything in.
“And for the entire conference? What about that?”
“Think about that tomorrow, when you’ve had time to grieve.”
She wiped her eyes even though no tears had fallen. “You’re right. Dammit, see, even you’re better at this than me and it’s not your job.”
“It’s my job to look after you.”
She laughed, shook her head, and straightened her back. “Wow. I think I really needed to hear that. Thank you.”
His smile was small. He’d already breached so many protocols, and he pulled back his hands as if she’d burned him. He checked his watch. “Two minutes to go.”
“Right.” She pulled the speech up on her phone and gave it a last read through. “I’m ready. I’ve got this.” Then she peered out of the glass wall beside the elevator and saw the people gathering below. Panic gripped her face again. “What if someone tries to kill me? This is how it happened last time. This is what happened to Archie.”
“I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It feels strange putting my life in the hands of someone I met a couple of hours ago.”
“It’s my job. I know what I’m doing. No one’s going to get to you.”
She stared him down, as if she could read whether he was telling the truth by looking into the face he’d hidden behind a professional mask of stoicism. “Yeah,” she said eventually, when a shiver of heat had just worked its way down his spine under her scrutiny. “Yeah. I believe you. Let’s do this thing.”
He stood just behind her as they got into the elevator and went down to where the press awaited them. Cameras flashed as soon as the door opened, and microphones were shoved in her face. She ignored them all until she got to the spot Miranda had said, in front of the fountain in the lobby. Plenty of flashes were directed at him, but he wasn’t paying attention. His gaze roamed the sea of faces looking for anyone out of place.
He knew how to read body language, it was what a lot of his training had been. He needed to be able to spot people who were about to do something to his charge, not just intercept them when they were already attacking. It was a game of cat and mouse, about who made the first move.
Now, though, he couldn’t see anyone suspicious in the swathes of people. They were all watching Cassie, a range of sadness to contempt on their faces.
Her speech was good. She was constrained and emotional at the same time. Her voice broke on just one word, her mentor’s name. It was so perfectly done he wondered whether it was an act.
He had to stop himself looking at her as she spoke; even her tone was enough to throw him off balance.
He’d been so cut off from people who freely showed emotions for so long that she was almost overwhelming.