Chapter Two

Zachary Martin hated hospitals. Hated the smell and the sick people and the miasma of death that lingered around the place. And he’d been coming here far too often over the last three months.

He paused at the nurse’s station. “Is it okay if I go in?”

She smiled and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” They were used to him coming at unusual hours.

Lauren had a room in the ICU to herself. She lay on the bed, eyes closed, wires and tubes leading from her to various machines. They were all that were keeping her alive.

“Hey, partner,” he said as he approached the bed.

They’d been partners for three years. He’d argued like hell against having a female partner, especially one as attractive as Lauren. She would have said—what the fuck has that got to do with anything? She’d turned out to be the best partner he’d ever had. Smart and intuitive. Brave. She’d saved his life that day in Paris, probably at the cost of her own. He’d heard talk that her family were considering removing her life support. Apparently, the doctors believed there was zero chance of Lauren regaining consciousness. And if she did, she’d likely sustained considerable brain damage and would never be able to live a normal life. Would never walk again.

And maybe her family was right—she wouldn’t want to live like that. Or like this, either.

“I just hope if death comes, then it’s quick,” she’d once said to him. Well, she’d been dying for three months now, so not quick. She’d broken her back in the explosion. But it was the shard of metal embedded in her skull that had caused the worst damage.

He wasn’t even sure why he came here. But he’d been doing some reading on the subject, and it was believed that people in comas could actually use limited senses. Maybe she was in there somewhere, listening to him.

Or maybe he just couldn’t face going home to his empty house—his wife was long gone—and the hospital, however painful, was the better option.

Crap partner. Crap husband. The only thing he’d ever been good at was his job. And he was no longer sure of that. His boss had accused him of seeing conspiracy theories where they didn’t exist.

But he knew he was onto something big.

Seemingly random acts of terrorism. Except they were anything but random. And a day after he and Lauren had gone to their bosses with what they had put together, they’d been caught up in one of those terrorist attacks.

Had they been getting close and someone decided to take them out of the picture? If so, then they’d done a good job. Lauren was in a coma and he was on orders not to go anywhere near the case.

Not that he’d had anything anyway. At least up until recently. Then two weeks ago, he’d gotten his first breakthrough since the attack.

He dragged the single chair up to the bed and slumped down into it. If he ignored all the tubes and wires, she looked like she was sleeping. Her dark red hair had grown only an inch or so since it had been shaved off for the surgery, but she’d always had short hair, so that was normal. Her skin was pale, but she’d kept out of the sun—she’d said people with her fair complexion were too much at risk of skin cancer. And not wearing makeup was pretty much standard for her. He could see the slight rise and fall of her chest as the machines pushed air in and out of her lungs. She looked as though she could open her eyes at any moment and for the first few minutes in here, he found himself holding his breath, waiting for her to acknowledge him.

“I’ve found something, Lauren. I’ve got a lead at last. A Doctor Eve Blakeley.”

He’d done some preliminary research into the Blakeley woman, with interesting results. At first sight, he had to admit she seemed an unlikely candidate as a terrorist. Over the years, he’d worked with numerous profilers. And she did not fit the standard profile. But there was a connection somewhere, and he was going to dig and dig until he found it.

“She’s not a medical doctor,” he told Lauren. “She’s an archaeologist, teaching at Cambridge University, and she’s fucking la-di-da. Her dad is a hundred and twentieth in line to the throne or some such crap. I even found a picture of her as a debutante, when she was presented to the fucking queen.” Lauren would have hated that. She was a socialist through and through. “A lot of these upper-class kids become prime targets for radicalization, though. Maybe guilt over having too much when half the world is starving. Or just boredom. Though that doesn’t seem the case with Eve. Clever as shit apparently, and a hard worker—I called up some of her coworkers. Bit of a loner—I jumped at that one. But always willing to step in and help. She’s well liked.”

He’d been out of the country most of the time since he’d dug up the lead—he suspected his boss was deliberately keeping him out of the way. But he’d appropriated some resources and had someone watching her. So far, they’d seen nothing suspicious.

No response from Lauren. Now for the interesting stuff.

“You remember Major Noah Blakeley? We worked together on that case in DC two years back. You thought he was hot.” She’d only admitted that on the plane coming back. Lauren didn’t get involved with anyone on the job. But maybe that had been about to change—with Zach. They’d been hovering on the edge of starting something.

Noah Blakeley was military. Zach usually hated working with the military; they were too by-the-book, too used to taking orders and doing things the right way. This major was different. He was part of a specialized counter-terrorism tactical unit looking for alternative ways to fight terror. They’d talked, and he had similar theories to Zach’s; he also believed there was some central individual or organization choreographing many of the terrorist attacks, with no obvious connection to a specific race or religion.

“It appears the hot major and the archaeologist were married. They got divorced five years ago, but they have three children. An eleven-year-old and six-year-old twins. Cute, huh?” Lauren hated kids. “But that’s not the really interesting part. Guess where they met. Nah, you’ll never guess. You want me to tell you?” He gave a dramatic pause because he knew it would irritate the hell out of her. “Okay, since you ask so nicely. Twelve years ago, the major—or rather, lieutenant, as he was then—was part of a rescue mission in Iraq. A team of archaeologists—a joint UK and US expedition—had been taken by a terrorist group. Some off-shoot of al-Qaeda. They were being held as suspected spies, and you know what that means.” Two of the team members had died while in the tender care of the terrorists. They’d all been tortured. But it was also a known fact that many victims of kidnapping come to identify with their kidnappers. Ideal conditions for radicalization. “I’m guessing you know where this is going. Yup, our little debutante, Eve, was one of them. She was only twenty at the time. And she had it rough. Pretty girl like that. Anyway, then the brave, ‘hot’ lieutenant comes along and rescues her, and they fell in love and got married. Okay—I embellished that a little. Actually, she got knocked up and they got married—at least it looks that way from the age of their eldest daughter—but I’m sure they were in love as well. Though clearly it didn’t last, because they’re divorced now. And he’s in DC and she’s in England, so no happily ever after.” He fell silent for a minute. Gave her a chance to process the information.

He watched the steady rise and fall of Lauren’s breaths, listened to the rhythmic beeping of the machine monitoring her artificial heartbeats. No change. No magical awakening. “So what do you think?”

Nothing.

His chest ached, but he kept his tone positive. She didn’t need to hear him whine.

“I took it to Brody.” Their asshole boss. “But he said I’m still off the case. Apparently, I’m too fucking emotionally invested to see things clearly. Load of fucking crap. They haven’t got a clue.” Or maybe they did have a clue but were being paid off by someone to keep quiet.

Now he wasn’t sure what his next move would be. Continue to watch Eve Blakeley? Wait for her to commit some act of terror? How long was he supposed to wait? He was fucking fed up of fucking waiting. Besides he couldn’t shake the feeling that time was running out. That something big was going to happen and soon.

The anger and frustration built inside him and he fisted his hands at his sides to stop himself from lashing out. They’d probably ban him from seeing her again if he started wrecking the place.

Jesus, he needed to do more. He couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what I always say: if you don’t know how to move forward, then work out what you really shouldn’t do, and do exactly that.”

They’d told him to drop it.

Instead, he’d go and introduce himself to Eve Blakeley.

And find out what she knew about the terrorist organization that had killed his partner.