Jigsaw (Black Raven Book 2) (34 page)

Chapter Thirty

London, England

Monday, February 7

Hell.
An arm’s length away for the duration of a transatlantic flight?
Fuck.
Too close. He’d smell sweet, soft jasmine for hours. He’d had enough of that fragrance for a lifetime and certainly since that morning, when he’d resumed the lead position on Sam’s detail.

She’d stepped ahead of him onto Raven One, the Black Raven Gulfstream 650 ER taking them from London to ADX Florence, Colorado, the federal supermax prison that housed Stollen. He’d stopped on the tarmac to talk to the captain and co-pilot, who he hadn’t seen in a while. Deal, Jenkins, and Miles filtered into the back of the jet. She was settling into the seat across the aisle from the A seat, the reclining chair he usually rode in, unless he opted for the private berth in the back of the plane.

As he decided whether to take the A seat, he said to her, “You could go in the back. Shut the door. Get some sleep on the couch.”

“I prefer the front.”

Dammit to hell. So did he. The A seat. It was the closest to the door and the closest to the cockpit. It was the seat he and other partners in the company vied for if they were flying together, and they weren’t afraid to act pretty damn juvenile to get to it. He wasn’t going to fly across the goddamn Atlantic in another seat just because sitting in the A seat meant sitting on the opposite side of the aisle from her.

Besides, his agents expected him to take the A seat. They’d think it odd if he didn’t, and he was willing to bet they’d know exactly why he opted out. The whole job had been a clusterfuck from the start, because it hadn’t just been a job for him. He’d hand-chosen the agents on Sam’s team and personally given them a discussion about discretion before they’d started the job.

He made it a practice to deal with adversity head-on.

Why change now?

Settling into his preferred seat, he turned on his reading light, opened his laptop on the slide-out table, and stretched his legs out in front of him. Miles, Jenkins, and Deal were far enough out of earshot to not hear any conversation that transpired between him and Sam, assuming they kept their voices low.

Doesn’t matter. As they stood on the other side of the door, they probably heard God-knows-what over those nights as you and Sam went at it like there was no tomorrow.

Hell.

Joke’s on you, buddy, cause now there is no tomorrow. To top it off, last night they probably heard her screaming McDougall’s name just like she screams—no, screamed—your name when she comes.

He didn’t anticipate talking about anything with Sam his agents couldn’t hear and even if the conversation went there, it would just be an accompaniment that went with the other aspects of this fucked-up job.

Sure as shit, as he tried to focus on his work, he felt her green eyes sliding over his face, burning the path they crossed. For the hundredth time that day, or maybe the two hundredth time, he felt that she was waiting for him to say something about her engagement to McDougall.

The fact that she thought he’d have something to say about it irritated the goddamn living shit out of him. What the hell was he supposed to say?
Congratulations? Best wishes?
Worse, at some point during the first day of proceedings in London, when he’d caught her watching him from across the courtroom, he’d decided she was looking at him with a slightly concerned, perturbed look that spelled
P-I-T-Y
and said
I’m sorry
, even though the words hadn’t crossed her mouth.

Sorry
?
Pity? Flying fuck to both ideas.

He didn’t want to hear her say, “I’m sorry” and certainly didn’t want her pity. Throughout the day, upon getting the feeling some variation of those words were coming from her, he’d braced himself for the moment she articulated the thought.

He wasn’t so desperate that he needed an apology. Never would be. Just pissed. And feeling raw, and the last thing he wanted to do was anything that would reveal to her how his heart felt like it had been macerated to shreds.

With a signal from the cockpit, he fastened his seatbelt. He opened his laptop, and scrolled to the folder of insurance information downloads. He turned to the flow sheet of insurance provisions that Ragno had prepared. It would be a sure cure for insomnia borne of irritation, but only if he didn’t start thinking about the serious liability that accrued on Black Raven jobs that went south. As the Raven in charge of operations, until the current job, and as a cleaner of some of the company’s trickier messes, like the fall-out that happened over the Barrows incident, he understood the considerable dollars that were wasted when the company was sued.

Instead of analyzing the flow sheet, he glanced out the window. It was a cold, cloudy Monday night in London. As the jet lifted off the runway, swirling gray mist concealed the lights of the city. Now that they were on their way to interview Vladimer Stollen, Sam had left her second chair lawyer—Abe—to handle the witnesses in London on Tuesday, which were government investigators setting forth the evidence on the trade show bombing. Charles would provide assistance to Abe.

Stollen’s interview was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., Mountain Time, on Tuesday. A team of Black Raven agents was meeting them upon landing, and they’d assist with transfers. Robert Brier—already stateside for his wife’s memorial service—was meeting Sam at the prison for the interview of his client. The lead prosecutor for the U.S. in the ITT proceeding, Benjamin McGavin, had flown home over the weekend and would meet her at the prison as well. Other necessary parties would participate via videoconference. Judge O’Connor would monitor the conference and make necessary rulings to facilitate information gathering. By 1500 on Tuesday, Zeus would have Sam back on Raven One for the return trip to London.

He’d been man enough to observe the Sunday evening proposal, until Sam was safely in the hotel room with her fiancé. He’d even walked into the suite, made sure it was secure, glanced at the king size bed they were going to sleep in, lost his breath for a second when he thought about her with McDougall, and told them both goodnight. McDougall had given him a slow nod, his blue eyes revealing bucket-loads of unease. Sam, arm in arm with McDougall, had nodded as she looked past him, her cheeks flushed pink from champagne and happiness.

Closing the door to McDougall’s hotel room had been the final straw. Zeus relinquished control to Jenkins and the other members of the team. By midnight, he was in exercise clothes, running through the streets of London, weaving on and off the route they would take in the morning to bring the Amicus team to the proceedings.

In the drizzly, almost freezing night, he’d run along the Thames River, crossed it via the Waterloo Bridge. He sprinted along the wide sidewalk of the Strand to the Royal Courts of Justice, where the ITT proceedings would be held over the next week. The Gothic building looked more like a cathedral than a courthouse.

Once at the barricades that blocked the entrance to the courthouse, he’d stretched, and returned calls to both Sebastian and Gabe. Given the genuine concern he heard in their voices in the messages they’d left for him, Ragno had obviously been working behind the scenes and let both men know what had transpired between Samantha and McDougall. He kept the conversations with both his friend and his brother short. Two sentences with each were adequate to end the discussion on his personal issue.
Thanks for the concern,
and
I’m fine.
He focused on work issues with each of them, and ended the conversations.

He ran back to One River Thames, a high-rise building that was partly exclusive private suite hotel and mostly private residences, where Black Raven would guard the Amicus team while the London phase of the proceedings were ongoing. Residence One attracted wealthy, international business clientele, who paid big bucks for discretion, safety, and anonymity. The sleek building boasted two floors of conference rooms that were equipped to handle business functions, and panoramic views of the London skyline and the Thames. Black Raven had consulted on the security of One River Thames and had, from time to time, provided on-site protection for various clients there.

At 0630 on Monday morning, Jenkins, Miles, and Deal, had escorted Sam from McDougall’s hotel to One River Thames. Zeus hadn’t reappeared at her side until 0830, when it was time for her to leave for proceedings. The day had been full of necessary communication between him and Sam. There were directional instructions, mostly related to transit to and from the first day of proceedings in London, such as “
second car
,” “
wait a second, we need clearance
,” “
ready?,
” “
there’s a bathroom down the hall for you
” and “
here’s the flight plan.
” He’d kept those communications as generic as possible.

Zeus also had to communicate with her on the security detail Black Raven was putting together for Stollen. The post-interview security detail, assuming the terrorist produced helpful information, was part of the package Sam would be offering the terrorist in return for credible information that led to apprehending Maximov.

Planning the details of keeping the terrorist safe and protected, free yet isolated, for the rest of his life, in a manner approved by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the trial court judge who was overseeing implementation of Stollen’s sentence, required a task force of agents at Black Raven headquarters to develop the project parameters and estimate. Once the site was selected, Zeus had directed the agents to provide Sam pictures. She’d need them in the interview.

Now, with the darkness of the cold night outside, the jet window had become a mirror. She was watching him, waiting for his attention. Her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders, her black turtleneck a perfect backdrop for the lightness of the silken strands. Her eyes were stark with seriousness. Her lips, neither a smile nor a frown, were perfect. She wasn’t wearing makeup. At least he didn’t think so. Her white-gold, creamy-complexion beckoned his fingers, looking soft and touchable.

Bracing himself for a dose of bad-tasting medicine, he turned from the window to face her, because he didn’t think he could get away with ignoring her for the entire journey across the Atlantic. “Now that we’ve leveled off, there’s food in the galley. You should eat.”

“Thank you. I will. Later.” Glancing towards the rear of the jet, she dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned his way, closing some of the distance between them that the aisle provided. “Zeus, I’m sor—”

“Don’t.”

Her brow furrowed and her eyebrows drew together. “But we need to talk about it. I’m trying to tell you how sor—”

“Anything you have to say that starts with an apology, and ends with ‘
but I’m going to marry him anyway,’
is a discussion we don’t need to have.” He had lowered his voice to a whisper, but the words were so painful he felt like he was shouting.

Her cheeks became flushed. Good—his message was hitting home. “Save your breath. Marry McDougall. Gear your life for your career. Work hard, exercise hard, live a steady life with him. Sit in front of a fireplace together on winter nights as you both work. Watch your sunsets together. Share your ambitions. Help each other realize them. Talk about your days. Have your active vacations, get your two Golden Labs.”

She flinched, as though he’d deliver a blow, and he immediately ground his teeth in frustration. Why, exactly, did he give a rat’s ass that he was hurting her feelings?

“What’d you think? That I forgot any of the things we talked about seven years ago? I remember everything about you, Sam. Even the inconsequential crap. Why do you think the caterer provided ham sandwiches on white bread and barbeque potato chips in the galley of this goddamn jet? Because I know that’s your favorite late-night snack. There are even macarons in the galley, for God’s sake. I know you don’t sleep well on an empty stomach, and you skipped all the healthy stuff we had at dinner earlier. Tomorrow’s a big day for you.” He frowned, trying, but failing, to keep bitter petulance out of his voice. “And I’m willing to bet you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Now she didn’t look like she was going to apologize. She just looked damn miserable, and the reading light directly over her seat bounced off her diamond engagement ring and shot a fucking prism of brilliance into his eyes. “Come on, Sam. Did you think we’d resume where we left off on Sunday, before you accepted his proposal? Sharing a bed? Me making love while you tell yourself all we’re doing is having sex? Well—”

“Understood.” Her one-word interruption came with a cool nod. “You don’t have to say more. I’ve heard enough.”

“Don’t think you have.” He was on a roll, and seething. Furious at her for fucking up both of their lives, he wanted to make damn sure that she understood his position. Glancing back at Jenkins, who was closest to him, and at Miles and Deal, who were further back, he saw that they weren’t paying attention. Or they were doing a damn good job of looking like they weren’t paying attention. Didn’t fucking matter. He was going to say what he needed to say, and after that he was going to damn well forget about it. And her.

“Now I understand why you didn’t want to talk to me about what I did seven years ago.” He inhaled, almost laughing at the puzzled look and surprise that crossed her features, then realizing he was looking at both heartache and relief. “Yeah. I get it. You’re just doing to me what you think I did to you. Well, the reason why we don’t need to talk about it—what I did to you or what you’re doing to me—is that it hurts too fucking bad to talk about heartache with the person who is causing it. I get it now. Loud and fucking clear.”