Then he’d looked up, straight into my eyes. I’d seen the fire jump there, and the need.
Next thing I knew I was holding onto him, or he was holding onto me. I never knew who made the first move. His mouth was crushed down onto mine with a hunger that left me breathless, and exultant. Those long, clever fingers were framing my face, diving into my hair.
The want was explosive, all-consuming, clawing through my body, the sheer force of it taking me by surprise. I couldn’t feed it fast enough, couldn’t touch him fast enough, to begin to satisfy the craving. Although I’d known in some corner of my mind that I found Sean physically attractive, something had warned me he was trouble. I’d been both wary, yet minutely aware of him, but I hadn’t realised how deep it ran.
By the time he broke away we were both breathing hard. I could feel the heat coming off me in waves.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the very first moment I set eyes on you, Charlie,” he said softly, pinning me with those velvet dark eyes while he stroked my hair away from my face. His fingers stilled. “But I wouldn’t have done anything about it if I hadn’t seen that you wanted it, too.”
“Yes,” I said. I would have said anything, so long as he didn’t stop.
He smiled at me. No smugness, no triumph. God he looked so different when he smiled. “Question is, what do we do about it now?” he murmured. I couldn’t find the voice to answer. He was staring at me like he hated to tear his eyes away. “You have a weekend pass, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“So do I,” he said. “Meet me outside the main gates in fifteen minutes.”
“Yes,” I said again. No hesitation.
He let go of me. I ignored the squawk of protest my nerve endings sent up, like having a plaster ripped away from oversensitive skin. As soon as the contact was broken a measure of sanity seemed to return to both of us. I leaned weakly against the nearest wall, unsure if my legs would support me without it.
“Christ. Jesus,” Sean muttered, taking a step backwards, almost stumbling when Sean never stumbled. He was the epitome of co-ordinated grace and muscle. “Why am I doing this? I never do this.”
He shook his head, wiped a hand over his bemused face. “You do believe me, Charlie?” he said, his voice shaken. “That is not a line. I have never hit on a trainee before.”
“Considering about ninety-nine per cent of them are blokes,” I managed, still trembling, “I’m relieved to hear it.”
He looked at me again, and something of the cool soldier was back in his face, his eyes. “Seriously, we shouldn’t do this. Who knows where it could lead. It just feels so—”
“I know.”
I stepped forwards, stepped in to him. I reached up, put my lips against his, and silenced his doubts along with my own.
***
The next morning, Figgis and Todd ferried us into Einsbaden village to carry out our site surveys, as planned. I was surprised, I must admit, that the Major was still prepared to let us loose off the Manor grounds, but he gave a rousing speech at breakfast.
The gang of criminals who’d attacked us were escaping from an armed robbery and had now been caught by the police, he’d lied, staring us straight in the eye. It was all done and dusted, nothing to worry about.
Looking round the students’ faces, I wondered if he saw the scepticism written there as plainly as it was felt.
Nevertheless, none of us voiced our disbelief and we dutifully allowed ourselves to be loaded into the school trucks. The only exception was McKenna, who’d been judged to be suffering from concussion from the crash.
It wasn’t like Gilby to show any sympathy for the sick, but maybe he was just worried about being sued. Either way, McKenna had been excused the 5am slog and was reported to be still sleeping when we rumbled down the driveway out of the Manor.
If Einsbaden had been quiet in the evening, it was little better during daylight hours. With the instructors observing, we’d been told to make an inconspicuous survey of the area. The idea was not only to learn the layout of the village from the point of view of ambush and escape, but also so we could generally baby-sit our principal.
“He’s going to want to know where to have a coffee, or breakfast, or buy a souvenir,” Gilby said to us. “It helps you avoid putting yourself and your client into a vulnerable situation if you know in advance the answers to these questions. Then you have to plan for the possibility of something going wrong. If so, where’s the local doctor? Nearest hospital? You will be tested on this knowledge before the end of the course.”
Personally, by the time I’d been in the village for an hour, I wondered why any high-powered principal would want to spend more than that amount of time there. It was just a pleasant little place with the usual local amenities, but nothing special enough to make you want to linger.
Besides, despite the sunshine, it was bitterly cold. I finished my tour and headed for the tiny café in one corner of the square, which promised good coffee and was pumping the tantalising smell of fresh pastry out into the street.
Inside, seated at a corner table opposite the door, I found Madeleine.
She looked relaxed, elegant, sitting there reading a guide book to the region and sipping espresso from a cup the size of a thimble. She glanced up as I came in, and her expression was artful. That air of slight resignation of someone who thought they had the place to themselves and is mildly annoyed to find they have not. As soon as she saw I was alone, her face shifted into a big smile instead.
“Well, something agrees with you,” she said brightly. “You’re looking fit.”
I didn’t answer that one, just took a seat at the next table, so I could distance myself if anyone else came in. Yeah sure, Mad, I thought. I just love being shot at.
She must have seen something of that in my face, because she quickly became businesslike. “Do you have it?”
I dug into my pocket and brought out the Hydra-Shok that I’d retrieved from under Shirley’s bed that morning. I handed it to her and she turned it over in her fingers.
“Damn,” she said, frowning. “For some reason, when you said you’d found it on the range, I assumed it had been fired. I thought we might be able to get a ballistics match done with the ones recovered from Kirk’s body.” She gave the round back to me and I tucked it away out of sight. “That doesn’t tell us anything beyond the fact that it’s from the same manufacturer, and nine millimetre is the right calibre.”
“The men who shot at us yesterday were also firing nine-mil machine pistols,” I said. “I got a good look at one. It was a Lucznik PM-98.”
“Mm, good choice,” Madeleine said casually, as though I’d mentioned a brand of lipstick. “Made in Poland, I seem to remember, but they’re becoming popular with some law enforcement agencies.”
I pondered for a moment on the concept of the police in any country using machine pistols. Still, why not? The British armed response units used Heckler & Koch MP5Ks. Why shouldn’t an American cop have the capability to fire over six hundred rounds a minute?
“I’m surprised Gilby was prepared to let you all out of his sight this morning,” Madeleine commented when I didn’t speak.
I glanced through the window just in time to see Blakemore’s FireBlade pull up with a flourish near the bar on the other side of the square. He yanked off his helmet as another of the instructors stepped out of an alleyway to speak to him. Todd, I guessed, from the stocky build, though he had his back to me.
“I don’t think we’re out of his sight exactly,” I said. “They’re keeping tabs on us.” I stood up. “If you can’t tell me anything about that round, I’d best get back out there.”