31

Journey to Orkney Islands, Scotland

The hitchhiker’s text had come from his wife, its timing coinciding with Salem texting Lucan a fluke. The text had prompted the hitchhiker to make a call, speaking in Gaelic, his voice rising in what sounded like an argument, but may only have been an animated conversation. He’d ridden all the way to the car rental return with Charlie and Salem, caught the same shuttle as them to the airport, then parted ways at the airport bus stop.

Agent Lucan Stone had not responded to the encrypted text.

Salem and Charlie had to run to catch their plane to Edinburgh. They made their flight, just, and slid into their seats. At the Edinburgh airport, they had a two-hour wait for a private puddle jumper that would take them to Kirkwall, the only airport in the Orkneys, an archipelago of seventy islands off the north coast of Scotland. They’d wolfed down sandwiches then found a quiet spot to catch some sleep, their heads bobbing against each other. It was the middle of the night when they finally boarded the four-seater. Salem was too exhausted to be scared by the plane’s size. She fished around her bag for a sweatshirt to turn into a pillow and came out with Mercy’s rag doll.

She held the doll to her face, inhaling the sweet scent of Mercy’s shampoo. The force of the tears surprised her. The child hadn’t asked for any of this. Like Salem, she’d been forced into a dangerous world, her path decided for her, her life always at risk. But Salem had been allowed a fairly normal childhood, at least until her father’s death. Mercy had never known stability, and now was being held by the most violent men Salem had ever encountered. A wail grew inside of her when she imagined what they were doing to the little girl right at this moment. They had to hurry. They had to save Mercy.

She fell asleep with the tears still on her cheeks, holding the doll as if it were her own child. She was jarred awake when the plane’s wheels grabbed the Kirkwall tarmac. She stretched. Her eyes and mouth were gritty, her hair and clothes disheveled. Surely the last two days had lasted longer than forty-eight hours. The world had taken on a surreal, foggy quality, the light oddly violet, her thoughts liquid.

The pilot didn’t leave his seat as they deplaned. “Your guide will be here soon. Lad’s roommate needed to wake him.”

“Thanks, mate,” Charlie said. “I owe you one.”

“That’s right,” the pilot said. “Except I’ll be home in bed in another two hours, and I don’t think that’s true for you, so let’s call it even.”

Salem grabbed her duffel and the B&C. Charlie had only his overnight bag. They trudged toward the small airport. Its single public structure was a cross between a pole barn and a naval training building, made all the smaller by the vastness of the sky

“Have you ever been to Kirkwall?” Salem asked. She was trying to blink the gunk out of her eyes, but she couldn’t. The weird eternal twilight effect lingered. Maybe someone had left the light on in the Orkneys? She began to laugh at her internal joke but stopped when she realized she was delirious.

“Never.” Charlie held the terminal door for her. He glanced over the flat terrain as she entered. “This is my first simmer dim, as well.”

Salem stopped and stared in the direction he was looking. She didn’t see anything except flat green fields under the lavender-tinted sky. “What?”

“This time of year, this far north, the sun only sets for a few hours. It’s called simmer dim. We’re on the far end of it—the phenomenon peaks midsummer—but the change in light and color is enough to unsettle you.”

Salem blinked. The sandpaper of her eyelids scraped against her cornea, but at least she now knew why everything appeared surreal. “Might make it easier to find what we’re looking for.”

His gaze landed on her, deep and intense, like he’d discovered something new about her. It was the same way Lucan Stone had looked at her in her dream, before he began kissing her. “I like your optimism. Thank you.”

Salem didn’t know why she blushed. “Do you know the guide who’s meeting us?”

“Not a bit.” Charlie smiled, breaking the mood. “We might as well get comfortable.”

The inside of the airport was much more welcoming than the exterior, featuring rows of comfortable chairs, televisions turned to twenty-four-hour news, and a restaurant that wouldn’t open for two more hours.

“I’m going to use the loo,” Charlie said. “Shall we take these chairs?”

They looked as good as any. Salem dropped into one, keeping her eye on their bags while Charlie went, and then grabbing her toiletries and taking her turn. The bathroom was simple and clean. She washed her face in the sink and wiped it clean with scratchy paper towels. Digging around in her pouch, she found her toothpaste and toothbrush. She felt a million times better after scrubbing her teeth.

When she returned to her seat, Charlie had purchased a couple bags of what he called crisps along with two colas from a vending machine. “Fine Scottish dining.” He smiled his lopsided smile.

She took the food gratefully. “I’ve never had salt and vinegar potato chips.”

“Well then, my darling, you have not yet lived.”

She dug into her bag. The crisps were so tangy they puckered her lips. The icy cold cola provided a perfect contrast. They munched in companionable silence. They were the only people in the airport besides a janitor and a security guard who were talking over a garbage can on the far side of the terminal, and near them, a man sleeping on a bench.

Still, when a thought occurred to her, Salem pitched her voice low. “The plan at Stenness is the same as Stonehenge, right? We look for a code on, around, or as the stones.”

“Sounds about right.” Charlie crunched thoughtfully. “I’ve never been here.”

Salem nodded. “You mentioned that.”

“No, I mean Scotland.”

Salem looked at him, surprised. “But your mom was from here?”

“Born and raised, until she moved south. Quite a woman, her. Name was Elizabeth.”

“She’s not alive?”

Charlies eyes dropped. “She passed when I was eight.”

Salem softened toward him. “I’m so sorry.”

“I was lucky to know her at all.” His smile took on a boyish quality. “You would have loved her. Everyone did. She was a bit of a rebel spirit. Raised on a horse farm, left for England to join the British Army when World War II began. She was in London for the bombings, you know. They’d blitz every night, but my mother refused to leave because she was a nurse and she was needed.”

“She sounds like a brave woman.”

“You don’t know the half of it. One night her hospital was bombed. The army forced the evacuation, but she stayed behind to pull bodies from the rubble. She was a wee woman, could reach places the soldiers could not.”

“She survived the war?”

“She did. After, she found a scrap of land in southern England and began raising her own horses. She met my father then. They never married. She had me much, much later in life. I expect I was an accident, though she never made me feel it. I had the best tutors and free rein of the countryside.”

Salem sighed as she stared into her now-empty chip bag, the silver foil reflecting muddy shadows back at her. “Sounds like a wonderful childhood.”

The smile dropped off his face. “It was up until her death.”

“I’m so sorry.” He’d revealed that his father was also dead, which made him an orphan. “You said your mother was in the Underground?”

“Yes. They’d meet in our parlor. This was before the Internet, of course. I thought it was a bunch of country women meeting for tea, but sometimes I’d eavesdrop. They’d talk of codes and plans to buy land and free their sisters across the world. I was quite taken with it. Likely explains why I joined British intelligence straight out of college.”

Salem grew quiet. Since it seemed she couldn’t escape the reach of the Underground, maybe the answer was to not fight it, but to coexist with it as Charlie appeared to.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

She smiled. “If it’s whether we should buy more crisps, the answer is yes.”

The lopsided smile returned. “I can get us more. But no, I wanted to ask you about Agent Stone.”

Salem stiffened.

“I’m sorry to bring it up,” he said, “but I’m afraid I hurt your feelings earlier when I spoke about Agent Stone and Nina. It was unprofessional, and I apologize.”

“You didn’t—” Salem stopped herself. She wasn’t going to lie to Charlie. “I had a little crush on Agent Stone, but there’s nothing between us.”

“You aren’t dating?”

“Nope.” Salem planted her smile back on her lips. “I’m as single as a dollar.”

Charlie’s eyes cut away. “I’ll get us the crisps. You watch for the guide?”

“Sure. What’s he look like?”

Charlie stared at the sleeping man on the other side of the terminal and then out at the lonely tarmac. “Awake.”