Hiding the Past

by Sofia Grey

  Jack gave his hand to Juli and pulled her up to stand beside him. The overwhelming surge of relief was like nothing on earth. Any happy reunion would have to wait, though.

  “Come on.” He nodded towards the car park and pulled her along as he ran, fingers tangling together. In the relative safety of cover behind the recycling bins, with Charlie looping back in the car, Jack closed his arms around Juli. It felt like the first real breath he’d taken in hours. “You are never doing anything like that again. I thought I fucking lost you.”

  She trembled against him, her face pressed into the base of his throat.

  He held her tight. “Charlie’s on his way back. I want you to wait here until we’re done.”

  Shots were fired behind him. Six shots in swift succession.

  Juli clung to him. “Please tell me that’s Aiden and his team.”

  “Stay here, babe. I mean it.”

  She nodded, and he darted to the edge of cover and peeked around the bins. Aiden and Tanner were puncturing the tyres on all three BMWs. These fuckers were going nowhere.

  “Armed agents,” rang out the shout. “Put your weapons down and surrender.”

  Aiden had things under control, and it looked as though his backup crew were here too.

  Jack darted back to the men he downed. He tugged a set of nylon handcuffs from his pocket and restrained the first guy, before repeating the action with the second.

  The hostiles weren’t cooperating, and there was another rattle of gunfire. Jack ran back to Juli, glad to see she was in a safe place, before joining Tanner. The fight didn’t take long, and Aiden’s men were soon arresting all the kidnappers.

  Aiden updated Jack. Charlie’s distraction worked like a dream. It enabled Davey to take out the sole occupant of one car, then move on the main vehicle with Tanner and Aiden. The goal had been to get the main man, the guy in the suit that was interrogating Daisy. When the backup crew arrived, the hostiles had been outnumbered and overpowered. It was a great result. Aiden’s backup team would take them all into custody, while Jack and the others got their asses back to Rhosneigr.

  They had Daisy. They had Juli. Now they needed to get Maria.

  *

  Juli sat in the back of the car with Charlie and Daisy, while Jack sat in the front, and Tanner drove. Aiden and Davey followed in the comms van, now back on the road with fresh tyres. It started to rain as they sped up the M56 motorway approaching North Wales. Tanner seemed uncaring of the wet roads and rapidly decreasing visibility. He cursed softly when they ploughed through yet another black puddle of standing water.

  From the urgent discussion in the car and over the radio link to Aiden, they were worried about getting back to Holyhead in time. In normal weather conditions, it wouldn’t be an issue, but in this rain? They had to slow down, for safety’s sake.

  Adrenaline had given way to exhaustion, and Juli dozed.

  “We’re being rammed.”

  What? She was fully awake in a heartbeat.

  Something jolted the car. It lurched forward. Tanner was fighting with the wheel, and Jack had the passenger window open. He pointed his sidearm outside.

  What the fuck was happening?

  “Brace yourselves.” Tanner’s shout came as the car skidded, tyres screeching and engine howling.

  Juli gripped the handle above her door. Next to her, Charlie wrapped his body protectively around Daisy.

  The car was sliding. Tanner had no control. Time seemed to stand still.

  Jack yelled, as the engine note changed to a shrill tearing noise. The car bounced, jerking left and right.

  Juli squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  They slammed into something hard, the impact rattling every bone in her body and driving all the air from her lungs. There was a screeching noise, unearthly metal-on-metal scraping, and sobbing. The car rocked, forward and back, and then stopped.

  There was silence, complete and absolute.

  Juli opened her eyes. A bright set of headlights aimed for the back of the car. “Brace,” she wheezed, surprised she could speak.

  Fuck. The second jolt was harder than the first. The noises louder. The bouncing more vicious. The car leapt and shifted, leaving the ground altogether for a second, before crashing down with yet another hammering blow.

  Was this it? Were they dead?

  Juli gulped in air. No. She was still alive.

  The interior light came on, and she sat up. “Jack? You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He grunted. “Fuck, that was lucky.”

  Getting rammed twice was lucky? What did she miss?

  Tanner was updating Aiden over the radio, warning him to take care on the hill.

  What hill?

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Rhuallt Hill.” Tanner sounded breathless. “You know—that really steep one.”

  Yeah, that summed it up. A long, two-mile stretch of carriageway winded down the side of the hill, with a sheer drop on one side. It was a freaking miracle they didn’t slip over the edge.

  Rain hammered at the windows, as Tanner kicked his door open and climbed out, the cold spray flashing inside. “Car’s fucked,” he yelled through the open door. “We need to go with Aiden’s crew.”

  Juli scrambled out of the car with the others. It was another miracle none of them were seriously hurt. The airbags had all deployed, and apart from being shaken and bruised, nobody was injured.

  The hire car was a mess, as were several other cars that got caught up in the collisions. But which one hit them? “Where’s the car that rammed us?”

  “Over the edge,” said Tanner. “Good fucking riddance.”

  A windswept and sodden little group, they stood by the central barrier, surveying the debris in front of them and the cluster of people staring down the side of the ravine.

  “It was another Beemer.” Jack sounded furious. “Fuckers tried to push us off the road. Tanner’s driving saved us.” He pulled Juli close, and she clung to him.

  Davey arrived a few minutes later and led them back to the comms van.

  Two of Aiden’s backup crew had stayed behind at the motorway services, to take the kidnappers into custody. Two more of his team, Summerton and Ash, nodded greetings to Juli and the others when they climbed into the back. It was crowded inside now, but dry and warm. And mobile.

  Aiden didn’t need to point out the latest issue—they’d been delayed, and the van wasn’t as fast as the car. The chance of getting to Holyhead in time, already slim, was rapidly diminishing.

  Juli and Jack settled on the floor of the van, his arm over her shoulder and his chest cushioning her head.

  It seemed to take forever to clear the traffic that blocked them front and back. From here, they couldn’t just turn around and try another route. Every minute put Maria in greater danger, and Juli felt like screaming when she checked her watch again and saw the time. Almost five-thirty.

  If Juli phoned, would Maria take her call? She dialled the number, but it was switched off. She’d have to send a text message,

  Maria, we can’t get there in time. We’ve had an accident—everyone’s okay, but it held us up. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Stay safe. x

  Juli reached for Jack’s hand and laced their fingers together. Sitting across from them, Daisy was curled up in Charlie’s lap, looking like a sleepy kitten. Tanner gazed out of the window.

  “What’s going to happen to Irina?” Juli asked Jack. “I guess you don’t plan to let her leave with Yanni.”

  “No. We’ll find a way to make her safe.” Jack raised their linked hands to his lips, for a brief, burning kiss. “Our first priority was to get Daisy back. Now, it’s to find Maria.”

  “And if we’re late? What happens if we don’t get there in time?”

  “We have to hope Aiden was wrong about a leak.” Jack’s voice was grim, his jaw stiff and tense. “The police might not have time to take Yanni into custody. If the random gunman is still out there, Maria might not last that long.�
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  Aiden called for a police escort. His driver, Summerton, was pushing the van to its limits, a crazy dash at breakneck speeds on wet and slippery roads. They’d been in one accident already. They didn’t want another.

  Tanner sat, a look of fierce determination on his face. If they could get to Holyhead on time by willpower alone, they’d have been there half an hour ago.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  At precisely five to six, Yanni docked the little boat in the closest space to the road. It was raining hard now, and Maria’s fleece jacket was dripping water. She gazed around, her search sweeping up and down the road, looking for signs of Tanner and the others.

  Just because she couldn’t see them, it didn’t mean they weren’t there. It just meant they’d taken cover.

  The harbour bustled with people loading up boats and fishing equipment. It was far busier than she expected, and the Boathouse car park was almost full. As they climbed onto the dock—Yanni gallantly holding her hand as she stepped across the water, the boat undulating beneath her—a coach pulled onto the harbour car park. She pointed it out to Yanni.

  “Looks like a tour group.” He didn’t sound worried. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and they made their way slowly along the harbour, toward the road and the Boathouse. “Can you see your guys anywhere?”

  “Not yet.” She tried to sound confident. Inside, she quaked. Tanner, where are you? “They’ll be here.” Please don’t let me down. “And we lurk outside the hotel until they arrive, right?”

  “Yes, but for no more than fifteen minutes. Any more than that, and we have to assume they’re not coming.”

  They got caught up with a bunch of kids who docked a few yards away from Yanni’s boat. They were a cheerful, noisy group of youths, busy loading up crates of beer, along with fishing rods and buckets of bait. The path was blocked for a few minutes, while the kids dragged their equipment along.

  The leader looked cute, tall and angular with spiky wet hair dripping over his face. He grinned at Maria and Yanni, as they stood waiting patiently to go past. “We’ve room for two more, if you fancy a fishing trip?”

  Yanni said nothing, and the young guy tried again. “Hey. Seriously. We had a couple drop out at the last minute.”

  “Sorry,” said Maria. “We’re here to meet friends. But thanks, anyway.”

  “Sure. We’ll be leaving in half an hour, if you change your mind.”

  Yanni nodded to him as they finally moved past. He held Maria close to his side. It was all part of the plan. They wanted it to look as though he was restraining her and she was not there by choice.

  She looked ahead, and to the left and right, but there was no sign of Tanner, Jack, or anyone she recognised.

  They wouldn’t let her down, would they?

  *

  Juli couldn’t stop looking at her watch. It was 6 a.m. already. They drove at speed through the narrow Holyhead streets, pushing on, to get to the far side of town, already desperately late. Queues of cars were forming for the ferry, blocking the junctions and causing Aiden’s driver to honk repeatedly. The police escort had worked marvels, and it helped now, urging drivers to pull out of the way, to let them through.

  Jack and the others were all armed, ready to take up positions when they arrived. If things had gone to plan, they’d have dropped Charlie and Daisy back in Rhosneigr, but there was no time. Juli had to stay in the van with them, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  Maria was her friend. And Yanni’s being free was Juli’s fault.

  *

  Yanni glanced at his watch. “It’s 6:10,” he said. “Where are they?”

  Maria’s heart pounded, and her mouth felt dry. “They’re here somewhere.” Come on, Tanner.

  It was busy in front of the Boathouse. People were disembarking slowly from the coach, littering the ground with bags and cases. Maria and Yanni could mingle and look like they were part of the crowd.

  “We wait no more than five minutes,” said Yanni. Side-stepping a series of puddles, he guided Maria past the front of the coach and towards the main entrance for the hotel. It was located on a junction, on a patch of raised ground that overlooked the harbour and all the boats in the dock.

  Pausing for a moment, Maria gazed down at the boats, still searching left and right. Please, don’t leave me, Tanner.

  And where were the police? Maria’s tip-off should have ensured a heavy police presence. Yanni was a wanted criminal in a string of countries, for Christ’s sake. The rain was cold, and she shivered as her jeans became sodden from the hips down.

  “My phone.” She looked directly at Yanni. “Let me check my phone for messages.”

  He pulled her closer to the hotel, and they squeezed under the overhang, out of the rain, while he passed her phone across. She read the text from Juli. “They’ve been delayed,” she said, and showed him the message. It came in at 5:45.

  Yanni bent his head, his mouth close to her ear. “We have a more urgent problem.”

  *

  “It’s ten past six,” said Juli, her heart lodged firmly in her throat. The comms van had lurched to a halt on the edge of a crowded car park, a line of small boats docked on the left, and the hotel up the incline in front, two hundred yards away.

  There was no sign of Yanni or Maria. Had they gone already? Or were they never coming here anyway?

  They wouldn’t recognise the van, and they wouldn’t see the police escort, as that peeled away earlier. Armed police were taking up perimeter positions, but here, at the Boathouse, it was just Aiden’s team.

  Right outside the hotel, holidaymakers milled around a large coach. It was entirely possible Yanni was using that for cover.

  “Let’s move,” said Jack. “We need to split up and take different positions. I’ll go with Tanner up the path to the hotel.” They quickly confirmed which direction they’d all go, and disembarked, leaving Juli to watch the monitors and man the comms. Davey had given her a five-minute briefing, and that’d have to do.

  Aiden and Davey split up, one on either side of the hotel, while Summerton and Ash checked the docks.

  It was stupidly busy for so early in the morning. Maria and Yanni could be anywhere.

  It felt like a bad case of déjà vu, reliving the events on the car park at Moelfre. Juli scanned the four displays in the van, one for each of the discreet cameras on the roof. And there—again—was a guy in black leathers with a motorbike. This time, the bike moved slowly past the van, towards the Boathouse car park. It had to be the same guy—black leathers, black helmet, black bike.

  “Watch out,” Juli said through the radio link. All members of the team would hear her. She gave them the biker description and his heading.

  The guy appeared again. He must be looping around, looking for Yanni.

  If he hadn’t found Yanni either, Yanni must be well hidden. Or not here at all.

  *

  “We need to move,” said Yanni. “We have to get back to the boat.”

  He gave Maria no opportunity to argue. His fingers dug into her side, and they set off into the rain at a rapid pace, dodging around the coach that was getting ready to leave. As they approached, the driver closed the doors and restarted the engine.

  “Use the bus as cover,” said Yanni. “We need to avoid the road.”

  “What did you see?” Maria tried to keep her voice low, but damn it, she was scared.

  “Our Russian friend from Moelfre.” Yanni paused, looking left and right. “There.” He pointed to a motorbike, cruising slowly off the car park on the far side of the hotel. “He’s done two circuits already. We’ve probably got fifteen seconds until he comes around again.”

  Maria’s grand plan had turned to shit. No sign of Tanner and the others. No hordes of police. Just her and Yanni and a Russian gunman.

  Yanni glanced down at her, his eyes dark and dangerous. “When I tell you, we run across the road and to the boat. Don’t stop for anything. Got that?”

  “Yes.”
Her teeth chattered with fear. With the way her knees shook, she doubted whether she could walk at all, never mind run.

  “On three?” Yanni’s voice was grim, his arm tight around her. “One. Two. Three.”

  They ran. They made it to the other side of the car park, using the coach as a moving shield. They crossed the road. As they reached the harbour side, Maria’s heart lifted. From here, it was a short run to the dock and the safety of the boat. She’d worry about Tanner’s absence later. For now, she wanted to get out of here and away from the gunman.

  Things were looking up, until two strangers appeared on their right.

  Two men, pointing handguns at them.

  *

  Juli’s warning sent a chill through Jack’s blood. Beside him, Tanner darted forward, searching the crowd for Maria.

  Jack hung back, waiting to see if the biker reappeared.

  The coach moved off the car park, and Jack saw Tanner standing on the steps at the front of the hotel.

  Tanner shook his head and shrugged. Where the fuck were they?

  “The bike’s coming back.” Juli cried another warning.

  Tanner ran back down the steps, towards Jack. The bike stopped on the very edge of the car park, on the harbour side. They were yards away, with a cluster of elderly holidaymakers blocking the path.

  “Got them,” said Juli. “Running across the road. They were behind the coach. Summerton and Ash are moving in to take them.”

  “Let’s go,” said Tanner.

  Jack was already moving. They dodged around the tourists and sprinted across the car park.

  There was Aiden with Davey, coming from behind the hotel. They were all converging on the same point.

  “Shit.” Juli’s cry was agonized in Jack’s ear, and he froze. “The biker’s stopped again,” she said.

  *

  “Stop right there,” said the taller of the two strangers. “Put your hands up.”