Without thinking Sam charged toward them and hurled his full weight at the one doing the punching, lifting him clear off of his opponent and sending him sprawling on the floor. Just as Sam realized that he had waded into a fight between two men who were considerably stronger than him, Alexandr appeared out of nowhere and leaped on the fallen soldier.
"His arm!" Alexandr yelled at Sam, who quickly got the message and pinned the PMC's right arm to the floor while Alexandr took the left. Then he noticed the ginger curls sticking out from under the soldier's helmet and the pale, freckled face contorted into an expression of rage. It was Private Hodges.
The other PMC had recovered from the surprise of Hodges' attack and was back on his feet, ready to restrain the young man. His face was a bloody mess, his thick nose certainly broken and his left eye beginning to puff up. With difficulty, he hauled Hodges up, yanked a length of cord from his belt and bound his wrists while Sam and Alexandr held the private in place. Even though Hodges was a soldier, Sam would not have believed that he could be so strong. He was thin and wiry, but he was putting up quite a fight against this three captors. Soon a handful of PMCs arrived to respond to their comrade's call for help. It took six of them in total to drag Private Hodges away, and by the time they did the rest of the expedition party had appeared at their doors.
"Well, that was an unexpected excitement." Alexandr retrieved Sam's towel from the floor and handed it back to him.
"Thanks." Sam hastily replaced the towel and cursed himself for not noticing that it has fallen. Now he would never be able to look Alexandr, anyone else in the group or either of the PMCs in the eye again.
"However long they have been here, "Alexandr wondered aloud as Sam skulked back toward his own room, "it is clearly too long. I've seen this kind of aggression before, but usually only in people who are overwintering. I wonder when they arrived — and whether they intend to leave before winter sets in?"
A couple of hours later, when Sam heard the others coming back from breakfast, he was sprawled on his bunk and staring into space, still only half-dressed. He had got as far as pulling on his last fresh long johns and clean trousers, then out of nowhere, a deluge of memories had hit him, knocking him off his feet.
It was the moment with the towel that had triggered them. At first he had not been aware of anything more than his usual reserve, the standard feelings of foolishness and embarrassment at being naked in front of people. Sam had no particular hang-ups about his body — he knew that it was a little on the skinny side, not especially offensive to the eye — but he had been brought up to keep it to himself around strangers and acquaintances. The last time he had scuttled naked along a brightly lit corridor in front of a host of mildly concerned near-strangers, he had been in the hospital, shortly after Trish's death.
He was surprised that he remembered it all so clearly, considering how thoroughly he had repressed the memory until now. The hospital had been busy and noisy, an overflowing medical behemoth in East London, close to the warehouse where the shoot-out had taken place. Even in the seclusion of his private room, Sam had been unable to escape the screams of the terrified young man awaiting psychiatric assessment down the corridor, sounding for all the world like Private Hodges as he was dragged away.
Sam had drifted in and out of consciousness thanks to a combination of concussion and medication, desperately asking every nurse or doctor who came into his room whether Patricia was all right. He knew it was a lost cause. He was well aware that Trish's injuries were extensive. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the remaining half of her lovely face, bewildered and destroyed. But he could not let go of the hope that somehow she would have survived.
In the middle of his first night in the hospital, Sam had woken up in a morphine-fueled frenzy. He was convinced that Patricia was somewhere in the hospital, still alive, and that the arms ring would send more of their goons to kill her unless Sam could find her and protect her.
One by one, Sam had ripped the cannulas from his hands and feet and dragged himself out of bed. The sheets were twisted around his legs and caught up with his hospital gown so he threw them all off, feeling the tabs fastening the gown snap. Then, step by painful step, he hauled himself along the corridor toward the double doors. Somewhere beyond them, he would find Patricia. As he blundered toward the main stairwell he yelled her name over and over.
The touch of the first nurse's hand was like being woken from a fever dream. Sam never had any idea how many there had been. All he knew was that there had been hands everywhere, calming him, shushing him, turning him around and guiding him back toward his room. He was suddenly aware of the eyes of patients and staff staring at him from the other rooms, and when he felt the soft weight of the blanket falling around his shoulders he realized that he had been wandering naked.
They had sent a psychiatrist in then. As Sam was hooked back up to the saline and morphine drips, a gentle-voiced young woman spoke soothingly to him. She reminded him as sensitively as she could that Patricia was dead and that Sam needed to rest and recover from his injuries, but that she would be there to help him work through his trauma when he was ready. A nurse discharged a syringe of sedative into Sam's vein and he drifted back into unconsciousness, feeling more powerless than he ever had in his life before.
"Sam?"
A cautious tap on the door recalled Sam to the present. He glanced up to see Purdue's head sticking around the door, peering over the top of his glasses with a concerned expression on his face. "May I come in?"
"Yeah, sure." Sam hauled himself into a sitting position as Purdue entered and seated himself at the other end of the bunk. "What can I do for you?"
"Amuse me, first and foremost," Purdue said. "It would seem that I'm still confined to barracks. The others are planning to go and continue their explorations, but the soldiers have informed me that I am to remain here."
"What?" Sam was surprised. "Just because you asked if you could go back into the missile room yesterday? Seems a bit harsh."
"It's not just that," Purdue admitted. "It may also have something to do with them catching me out in an attempt to sneak back in during the night…"
"Ah." Sam tried not to laugh. Despite Purdue's knack for dragging the group into dangerous situations, he could not help but admire the billionaire's devil-may-care attitude. He could just picture the scene — Purdue on the point of getting into the room, caught in the soldiers' torch beams, a hint of frustration visible beneath his customary calm as he raised his hands and allowed them to escort him away. "Does that mean you want to work on the profile now? Shall I get my voice recorder set up?"
Purdue shook his head. "So boring. I would prefer that we talk off the record. I'm interested in you, Sam."
"Me? Why?"
"Because I know what you did. I know how you got your Pulitzer. An incredible feat — Interpol had been trying to find a way into that arms ring for over a year, and it was you who led them straight to their door. The things you did, the risks you took… Your courage was tremendous."
"I didn't do it alone."
"I know. What was her name… Patricia Highclere, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"I've read some of her work. She was a truly excellent writer."
"Yes."
"And brave, by the sounds of it. I'm only sorry I never met her." He looked straight at Sam, outright curiosity on his face. "You were engaged to her?"