The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

day. Parked on the road overlooking the seafront, the doors to the car locked, the windows wound up and the keys in the ignition. She had positioned the mirrors to watch the road behind her, affording little in the way of blind-spots and had spent the entire time studying all who came near. She kept the tiny pistol with its three rounds under her thigh. An easy reach.

Her nerve was gone. She was frightened, now that she was away from that place of hell, terrified she would be caught and bound and returned. Or taken someplace new and equally as hideous. She was hungry and thirsty, tired and desperately in need of a shower. The clothes Michael had given her were muddy, torn and blood-splattered. Her hair was tangled and lank, and as she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she would acknowledge that she looked hollow and worn. She was a beautiful woman, although she would never allude to thinking that, but she could see some light had left her eyes, some sparkle was gone, and she doubted it would ever return. She had been through much in her life – the killing of colleagues in both the army and MI5, as well as the death her fiancé in a terrorist attack – but she knew that these past weeks had extracted more from her than bereavement ever would. She thought of those poor women, their bastard children – innocent and compromised by fate, and whether they would ever know freedom again. She vowed, as she sat and stared at the stranger in the mirror, that she would help them. She would make it her life’s work if she had to.

Caroline watched Ramsay’s Skoda saloon pull up and park. He got out and looked around, then walk towards the lighthouse. There was a woman in the passenger seat. Her hair was dark and shoulder-length, her shoulders slender. Caroline felt a pang of familiarity. The same profile and build as Helena. Caroline continued to watch, noticed the woman looking around uneasily. She could see it was not Helena. While attractive, she wasn’t in the same league of beauty, and she wore a pair of small, rectangular glasses set in trendy designer frames.

She realised that she was being paranoid, but her ordeal had infected her, changed her. She doubted she’d ever feel truly free again.

Trust nobody, rely on nobody.

She unlocked the car, took the keys out of the ignition and slipped them into her pocket. She did not lock the car door behind her, preferring to know she could save an extra second getting back in if she had to. Why was she dubious? She should have trusted Ramsay, thrown herself at him as he arrived. But she didn’t feel she could let down her guard, put her safety into someone else’s hands. No rescue had come for her. She worried about Alex. Had he come to harm going through who knew what for Helena’s agenda? She had faith in him, but she couldn’t worry unduly. She needed to think about herself. But she knew that safety was an illusion. She wanted to flee back to London, but London was where she was abducted from. She knew she wouldn’t be any safer there than right here, right now. Leaving Georgia was putting the place behind her, but not the threat. The threat lay with Helena. And until she was dead or imprisoned for her crimes, then Caroline knew she would never truly be safe.

She glanced at the woman inside the car. She did not recognise her, but much of MI5’s work was compartmentalised and many people from various departments never met until they were pulled in to work on something specific. Support staff, analysts and technical departments would work together regularly, but field agents like Caroline and King rarely rubbed shoulders with them. In fact, since the attack on Thames House by Russian terrorists last year, most of her briefings had taken place in temporary offices in Whitehall or the MOD.

The woman was working on a laptop, balancing it on her lap and checking a smartphone at the same time. Caroline walked onwards, watched all around Ramsay and behind her, feigning interest in the giant Ferris wheel. Nobody seemed to be watching him, which was Caroline’s fear. She had come too far to be led unwittingly into an ambush. There were only a small number of places where it would have made sense for Caroline to go, it wouldn’t be too difficult for Helena with her resources to have people looking out for her. After all, Caroline could link her with a number of major crimes and would be a witness to her sex trafficking and baby farming schemes. Both of which would be crimes where sentences would be handed out in decades rather than years.

Ramsay turned and saw her. He strode over, stopped short of hugging her and hesitated. Caroline hugged him, relief catching up with her. She pulled away, looked at him. There were tears in her eyes.

“God, I’m glad to see you,” he said.

“Ditto,” she replied, a little croak in her voice. She coughed, took a breath and said, “Where’s Alex?”

Ramsay sighed. He glanced around and said, “Let’s talk in the car. We’ll get a hotel room, you can have a shower.”

Caroline stopped in her tracks. “I asked you where Alex was.”

Ramsay shook his head. “I don’t know,” he paused. “I haven’t had contact with him since this started.”

“So, you don’t know if he’s okay?” she asked. “Helena said that he was working for her, doing tasks to keep me safe.”

Ramsay nodded. “He has been,” he paused. “I don’t want to go into it here, but he’s a skilful chap. A certain set of skills, few possess. He has used them to good effect.”

“So where would be your best guess?”

“I imagine getting closer to Helena,” he said nonchalantly. “There’s nothing