Logan stood on the balcony and looked down at the crashing, frothing waves below. The dull grey sky seemed to blend into the water, making it impossible to pinpoint the distant horizon.
There was a cool breeze and Logan folded his arms and hunched his head down into the neck of his woollen jumper to escape the cold. Although the scene in front of him looked bleak today, it was a whole lot better than what he had become used to in the frozen wastelands of Europe and Asia over the last few months. And he knew that come summer, this place would be the paradise he craved.
Hell, compared to where he had come from, it already was.
After the paramedics had arrived in the car park in Beijing, Logan had called straight in to Winter. The JIA commander had still been parked in the car opposite the hotel. He rushed as fast as he could on his shot leg down to Logan and helped to straighten out the situation with the local police who, understandably, had wanted to lock Logan up.
From there, Winter had somehow been able to extract Logan from China with little opposition from the Chinese authorities. Logan didn’t know how Winter had managed it, but he was certainly grateful for it. And Winter, naturally, was thankful to Logan for his help in bringing to an end Lindegaard’s life of lies and deceit, and in doing so very possibly saving the JIA’s existence.
The news story that played in the press explained how the fugitive lovers - Carl Logan and Angela Grainger - had both been killed in a shoot-out in Beijing. Lindegaard and Evans were hailed as the heroes who’d helped bring them down. That was fine by Logan. A fresh start was all he wanted.
Although Winter could never entirely wipe Logan’s slate clean, Logan knew the JIA commander would have done everything he could to get Logan back into business at the agency. It was the last thing Logan wanted, though. For years, he’d carried out Mackie’s orders without a second thought. Then the chinks in his armour had appeared – in Venezuela first, there was no doubt about that. But it was his time at the hands of Youssef Selim that had brought the walls crashing down.
Angela Grainger had been the one who had helped him to rebuild those walls, to rebuild a life. But those walls weren’t as high or as strong as they used to be.
Logan knew he could never go back to the way he had been. He would never carry out orders religiously, unquestioningly, like he had before. He would never kill a man or a woman on nothing more than another person’s say-so. And that was fine. Logan didn’t want his old life back. He just wanted a life.
Winter had been happy to give him that. A new identity, a new location. A fresh start.
Logan knew he would still be on the Russians’ blacklist. The CIA’s too, possibly. He had to believe those agencies knew he was still alive. His enemies weren’t gone for good and they wouldn’t forget. There wasn’t much he could do about that. He knew he would never be able to truly free himself of his past. It was a dark cloud that would forever hang over him.
He was sure one day someone would come knocking, whether Winter, in need of his help, or the many enemies he’d picked up through his troubled and complicated life, come to seek their vengeance.
That was fine. Whoever came for him, Logan would be ready. He was sure of that.
As for Grainger, well, Logan hadn’t been quite sure what to think in the end. There had been so many ups and downs, so many lies in their fraught relationship, that it was difficult to identify what was real and what wasn’t. But some of it had been real, he believed. His feelings for her, for sure. And there had been more to his feelings than just lust. From the moment they had first met, Logan had been drawn to her, had felt a powerful connection that just didn’t seem to diminish no matter what problems were thrown their way.
He had always hoped she had felt the same. She had betrayed his trust more than once and yet each time he could understand her intentions. She had loved Tom Grainger, that much was clear. While he might have been naive in love, Logan wasn’t so naive that he hadn’t seen that Grainger still had feelings for her ex-husband, even though their marriage had long since finished.
Had Grainger still loved Tom like a partner all along? Logan didn’t know.
Had she ever loved Logan? He didn’t know the answer to that either, and yet he hoped it was the case.
Logan closed his eyes and listened to the crash of the ocean, the waves rolling and sweeping ashore, the noise of the wind whistling over the coastline.
With his eyes shut, he took himself away to another place. A place where he could still feel Grainger’s electric touch. The way it had been the first time they had kissed in a motel in the French countryside. He could feel the warmth of her body, the way they had fitted together so naturally the first time they had made love and each time after that. He could hear her soft voice whispering in his ear and smell her rich femininity.
Would he ever feel like that again?
He held himself in the moment, eyes shut, not moving, just thinking about her. As he drifted off into a world of his own, the sound of the ocean and the wind faded. All he could hear was the gentle rhythm of his heart beating calmly in his chest.
Lost in his thoughts, he heard the patio door slide open behind him. Imagined the soft footsteps approaching. He still didn’t move. Didn’t open his eyes. He felt the touch of the hand on his shoulder. The feeling of electricity jumping up through the ground, into his feet and through his entire body. The powerful sensation reminded him just how explosive her touch was. How alive it made him feel.
He smiled, then opened his eyes.