‘Jesus Christ, just listen to me.’ Nick cut her off, pointing at the men in the chairs across from them. ‘These guys have been searching for Goodie non-stop since she upped and left. I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to find her. Didn’t your great big bastard of a husband tell you that?’
Katie frowned. ‘Oh … I …’ She peered around Nick’s body to look at the two men sitting on the chairs opposite his desk, looking vaguely uncomfortable, and she gave them a small wave and a sheepish grin. ‘Hi there.’ They nodded back at her and Nick pushed up to his feet, stalked back to his desk and sat down heavily in his chair.
‘Right,’ he said, turning his chair towards Katie. ‘Start at the beginning: Where the hell is she?’
‘About two weeks ago she came to the house with Salem and asked me to keep him for her. She said that she had a job that she couldn’t take him on.’ Katie started wringing her hands in her lap and bit her lip. ‘I feel so bad but I didn’t realize that she would normally take Salem with her on all her jobs. I thought maybe she just didn’t want to shell out for a doggy hotel or something. It was only when I spoke to Sam and he went nuts over the fact she’d left the dog that I started to worry. He said … he said it was a bad sign.’ Katie watched as Nick’s jaw clenched and his body went alert.
‘A bad sign of what?’ he asked slowly.
‘Sam thought that if she didn’t take Salem with her then maybe …’ Katie’s eyes filled with tears and she dropped her gaze from his, ‘… maybe she wasn’t expecting to come back,’ she muttered at her hands still twisting in her lap. She jumped at the sound of Nick’s fist crashing down on the desk and looked up to see him pacing in front of his floor-to-ceiling window, staring out of his office.
‘Is she alive?’ He paused in his pacing to face Katie, and she almost flinched at the pain she could hear in his voice.
‘We think yes,’ she rushed to tell him. ‘One of the guys she went into the cartel with escaped. He said she took out almost half of the complex before she was taken down. He … couldn’t get to her. She took too many risks; she eventoldhim before they went in that he was to run when he could, she told him she wouldn’t be leaving unless she’d killed them all. He said it was like …’ A tear escaped to fall down Katie’s cheek and she wiped it away. ‘… he said it was like she had a death wish.’
‘How do you know that she’s not dead?’ Nick’s voice was hollow; his eyes when she looked up at him were haunted.
‘They planted surveillance stuff before they attacked. Very high tech; totally undetectable. They’ve heard her …’ Katie swallowed and looked away, more tears falling down her face. ‘Oh God, they’ve heard her screaming.’
At this Nick just simply crumpled; he fell to his knees on the floor, both his hands going up behind his head as he curled up and let out a roar like some sort of animal in pain. Katie leapt up off the sofa and rushed to him, dropping down to her own knees at his side and putting her arms around his big shaking shoulders. They stayed like that for a moment before suddenly Nick’s head came up, he wiped away the wet from his cheeks and he pushed to his feet.
‘Where is she?’ he barked, loosening his tie and going for his mobile phone.
‘Colombia,’ Katie told him. ‘Sam has the coordinates and everything.’
‘Right, I’m going to get her out.’
‘Nick, it’s not as simple as that. She wasn’t on a sanctioned mission. She didn’t have permission to be there. Sam tried going to the people who sent her but they don’t want to know. It would take a massive amount of firepower, manpower and all sorts of political manoeuvring to get her out.’
‘She’s right, mate,’ the larger gentleman on the chairs cut in. ‘If it was a below-the-table job, then –’
‘I’m not leaving her there, Harry,’ Nick said, his voice laced with steel and his hands bunching into fists. He swiped at his phone and put it to his ear. ‘Sam? Right … no, you listen to me. I want to know what you need to get her out. I want to know which fucking politician I need to intimidate to get us in there and I want to know how soon you can get a team together.’ There was a pause for a moment as Nick’s face flushed red and his eyes flashed at whatever Sam was saying.
‘No,’ he shouted. ‘You listen to me, you prick.I’mgoing to see thatmy womangets out of there alive. You haveno ideathe resources I have to hand: I’m richer than God and I’m on first name terms with every member of the cabinetandthe head of MI6. You should have come to me first.’ He listened for another minute before cutting Sam off again. ‘Jesus, I’ll buy you five fucking helicopters if you need them, you idiot. You source it and I’ll buy it.’
For the first time in two weeks Katie felt something bordering on hope. If anyone could get Goodie out, this man could, she just prayed that when they found her there was something left to save.
*twp– stupid, simple-minded
Chapter25
Scared stiff
Goodie staredat the concrete ceiling with the one eye that would still open, and ran on repeat the only thing that had kept her amused over the last week since she’d been shoved in this room. She saw in her mind the storage shed explode and the look on those bastards’ faces as it did, and despite the split in her lip, she smiled. Goodie knew she was dying. One side of her chest wasn’t moving properly, the ribs had been broken and something had happened to the lung. Her left leg was a mess, they’d smashed in her knee with a baseball bat and she could no longer stand on it. Her shoulder was dislocated. Normally she would be able to throw it back in herself, but without the use of her legs, and without being able to move properly with her chest, it was impossible.
She could separate from the pain but not from her memories. That fucking dimple had invaded her consciousness more times than she would have thought possible. His smell, the feel of his hair, the gentle way he touched her: however hard she tried she couldn’t repress those thoughts. When it came to feeling pain she was in complete control, but with Nick … She let her eye drift shut again and her good arm moved so that she could touch her dry, cracked lips; the memory of his mouth on hers was impossible to shake. Her eye flew open as she heard what could only have been an explosion from out in the complex; she frowned and thought about sitting up, but, looking down at her misshapen arm and leg, decided against it. Whatever was going on out there was unlikely to affect her. She’d be gone by the time anyone broke into this room.
She felt herself drifting again when there was another loud explosion, this time seeming to be in the room itself. Turning her head with some difficulty, she blinked through the smoke that had now filled the small space to see a large figure standing in the doorway. She watched as he scanned the room, saw her lying on the mattress and swore violently before running over to her and putting his hands under her back and knees to lift her.
‘You’re okay,’ she heard Sam’s voice say as he pulled her up against his chest.
‘Don’t … lie,’ Goodie managed to croak out, concentrating on pushing the pain away as she was jostled.
‘Fine, you’re not okay. But you fucking well will be.’
He turned them, and then they were running. The movement was so violent that she could no longer block out the pain, and the black closed in around her.
* * *
