Right now, she wanted to walk into the lake and just keep on walking until something made sense. Nothing had in the last half hour, and she couldn’t envisage that changing.
She sucked in a lung full of air and scrunched her eyes up tight again. One… two… three… four… five.
*
He watched her out the window, to make sure she was safe. She’d only walked five paces off the deck before she first collapsed on the sand, thumping it with her fists, crying out, screaming, then silencing herself to stillness. Now she was half walking, half stumbling to the left of the house, toward the dunes that banked up high and gave some protection from the wind.
Tawanda approached the door. ‘I should go to her. It’s getting dark,’ she said.
‘No,’ Nathan said immediately.
‘If anyone is going, it’s me,’ Alison spoke as she dabbed at her eyes with the corner of a tissue.
‘You’ve got to be joking. You’re the person she hates most in the world right now. And no one is going. She needs time to deal with it,’ he stated.
Alison looked at her watch. ‘We don’t have time. We need to decide what to do.’
‘We can give her the night.’
‘I need to make contact with Section 7. If I don’t, the—’
‘Call them,’ Nathan ordered. ‘Tell them your contact with As-Wana is meeting you tomorrow. We’ll have made a decision by then.’
Alison rose from her seat. ‘Fine, I’ll do it now.’
‘Use my phone, not yours,’ he said, taking it from his pocket and handing it to her.
Alison looked first at Nathan, then at Tawanda. ‘You do believe what I’ve told you, don’t you?’ she asked.
Nathan pressed the cell into her hand. ‘I don’t want to take any chances.’
*
She felt cold and numb, like someone had replaced her insides with crushed ice. Her father was alive. Alive! All these years she had mourned him, and all this time, he was living and breathing and existing under the same sky. And her mother had known. Her mother—the woman who had told her he had died and had wept as she broke the news—had lied. For what? To protect a secret branch of MI5 and their intel? To protect her father? To protect herself? To protect Autumn?
She hadn’t understood half of what her mother had said after Nathan delivered the news. He had known, too, and that knowledge did more than smart. He had known her father was alive all along, the man who had made her trust him. He had been lying to her from the minute they’d met. They’d spoken about her father. He knew just how much he meant to her, yet he had said nothing.
Her father had apparently been part of Section 7, too, a high-ranking soldier with an unrivaled technical knowledge of warfare and weapons. He was valuable to the British government, and that had made him even more so to terrorist organizations. One of his covers had been blown, and in a desperate attempt to keep him safe, his death had been faked, and he had been extracted. Only a select number of people were told where and who he was. Alison had had to break all contact. His death had to be very real.If the world didn’t believe Rick O’Toole was deceased, his life was over for good this time.
But last month, her father had broken cover, gone AWOL, and no one knew where he was. Somehow, As-Wana had found out he was alive, and their plan was to kidnap Autumn to draw him out of hiding, and, when he was theirs, under threat of execution, they would gather all his intelligence to use against British forces.
Her mother’s role in all this hadn’t been selling secrets to the terrorists. It had been trying to make sure this kidnapping was managed. As-Wana thought they were getting what they wanted from Alison – Autumn as a pawn with the guarantee that she would live if Alison stuck to the plan and ‘gave’ them her husband. But really, with Section 7 completely appraised of everything, it was the UK government’s objective to capture the main players in the terrorist group and to ensure Rick O’Toole was back under their radar for his own protection and for the protection of national security. Or so Alison had said. Autumn still wasn’t sure what or who to believe. So many people were telling her so many different things, it was blowing her mind.
She took another deep breath, drew in the scent of the lakeside, then inched open her eyes. She’d had them closed so long, it hurt to draw the lids up. She blinked slowly, reacting to the fading light as it invaded her pupils. Her eyeballs were sore from crying, and she couldn’t see properly. A shiver ran over her bare arms, and she pulled her knees up tighter.
‘It’s getting cold. You should come inside,’ Nathan spoke.
‘Go away!’
‘That isn’t going to happen.’
‘Fuck off!’ Autumn shrieked. ‘Do you understand that? I don’t want you anywhere near me. You lied! You knew my father was alive all this time. You knew!’
‘I couldn’t tell you! I signed the Official Secrets Act, Autumn. Do you know what that means?’
‘That’s a bullshit excuse. I mean, you’ve told me now, haven’t you? What’s going to happen? Will you be shot? Because if that’s what happens, I’d quite like to watch!’
‘Autumn, I know you’re angry but—’
‘Angry? You think “angry” covers it, do you?’ She climbed to her feet and faced
