Page 34

In which Arabella learns this undercover agent shite is incredibly stressful.

Arabella…

“Dinnae leave, aye?” I whisper, squeezing my husband’s cousin’s hand until my knuckles are white.

“Not even for a moment,” Mason promises. I can feel the steady beat of his pulse under my fingertips. This terrifying episode isn’t even raising his blood pressure! He’s wearing horn-rimmed glasses that make him look a wee bit like Clark Kent.

The medical clinic situated within the ship could rival the most prestigious surgical floor in any hospital in the world. Everything is new and gleaming and perfect. Peeking into the surgical suite next to this room makes me think there’s advanced technology here that hasn’t made its way into the mainstream medical world yet.

Lighting is muted, with light flowered wallpaper instead of glaring clinical white walls. There’s elegant artwork and soft music being piped through a speaker in the wall. I’m going to have to ask them to turn that off, it’ll impact my ability to hear the doctor’s questions.

I change into a white silk gown in the ensuite bathroom while Mason scrolls through his phone with his feet resting on the bed, looking completely comfortable with the situation. Folding my bra, I hide it under my clothes. I don’t know why, it’s not like Mason or the doctor haven’t ever seen a bra before, but it felt nyaff just leaving it there on top of my Hermes dress.

“Darling,” Mason says, “why don’t you put in your earbuds? They’ll help you relax.”

“Of course, thank you sweetheart.” Putting them in my ears, I hear the subtle click before Xenia speaks softly.

“You both have a flash drive. You’re looking for a specific double USB port, it can be in any of the devices around you, look for something that’s plugged and wired into at least one other device. Once you find it, plug in the flash drive. Your job is to keep the doctor busy while it downloads the data. Once I’ve got it, I can upload a virus. Keep your cool, Arabella. Can you do that?”

“Mm-hmm…” I hum idly, swaying slightly like I’m listening to some elegant, classical piece.

“You’ve got this. Be careful of your movements, Mason’s glasses are recording everything, but I can’t disable the cameras in the room without getting into the system. There’s one over the bed and another in the corner facing the door. Make sure your back is to them if you can get the flash drive plugged in.”

“Buon pomeriggio, Mrs. Bianchi, may I call you Guila?” The doctor is unsettling; she’s a round wee woman with silver hair and a sweet face that should belong to a grandmother, baking cookies for the bairns in the neighborhood.

Instead, she’s planning to cut into some innocent person. Lots of them, and steal their organs along with their life.

“Of course,” I force a smile. “Apologies, doctor. I’m a little nervous.”

“No need to be,” she smiles warmly, patting my hand. Over her shoulder, I see Mason strolling by the medical monitors in the corner. “Please, call me Alice.”

She launches into a detailed review of the renal failure that the real Guila is dealing with, and I’m feeling mighty grateful for Mason’s insistence of going over and over our backstories.

“Dr. Williams, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we had a question about your next patient?” A pretty blonde nurse smiles at us apologetically and I could kiss her.

“Excuse me, I’ll just be a moment,” Alice says, giving me a gentle pat on the arm that makes my flesh crawl. I reach out to Mason, smiling prettily as he takes my hand and leans in, pretending to kiss my cheek.

“Did ye find it?” I whisper.

“One of them. I had trouble getting the flash drive in, so we might have a problem.”

“What about the surgical suite? Any of the equipment there should have exactly what we need.”

He sits on the bed with me, patting my back as we eye the open door. One of the operating rooms is right across the hall, and it’s empty. “It’s risky, Arabella.”

“Aye, but I’m a spoiled wee princess, remember? If they catch us, I’ll carry on and make a fuss about how worried I am.”

I’d slipped my flash drive in the pocket of my robe when I’d changed, and my sweaty fingers curl around it as we walk out the door and into the OR. Mason’s leaning against the door, arms folded and keeping an eye on the hallway as I tiptoe around.

There.

A large heart-lung machine, to the left of the door. I pretend to look at the display as I push the flash drive into the port. Sweet Mother Mary and all the Saints, my heart is ready to pound out of my chest. There’s a discreet red light on the flash drive; I canna pull it out until it turns green.

Mason wiggles three fingers.

Thirty seconds.

Feck, I wish I hadn’t taken out my earbuds! Xenia could give me a countdown, or something. Angling my body, I block the view of the machine from the cameras while looking around the room, wide-eyed like I’m taking it all in. The blindingly sterile equipment and the surgical table is making my stomach churn. Straps dangle along the sides of the bed. It all comes back, how it felt to be immobilized in that scanner at Anselm’s compound. Helpless. Terrified.

His fingers move again. Six.

Sixty seconds.

Mason’s eyes widen slightly and he nods toward the hall. I canna hear them but Dr. Williams and the nurse must be coming back.

Feck. The light is still blinking red on the flash drive.

Four fingers, tapped hard against his thigh.

Abort.

I canna do that. Not yet. It’s not finished, it’s not.

Mason makes the signal again, harder.

“This is a sterile space!”

Dr. Williams is back and there’s two huge orderlies standing behind her.

Bursting into tears is hardly an effort.

“I’m sorry! I’m just so scared, Alice. This is all so much and I’m afraid of the pain and what if something goes wr- wr- wrong!” From the corner of my eye, I see the light turn green, I pull the drive out with one hand while I wildly wave the other, trying to channel my inner Italian.

She’s not looking like a kindly grandmother any more. “Do you understand that you have contaminated this OR? We will have to close it and run the sterilization protocol again. This sets back our surgical schedule. You could be impacting the successful outcome of another patient’s surgery.”

I cry harder. “Mi dispiace, I’m sorry!”

Mason takes my shaking hand, squeezing it when he feels the flash drive in my grip. “We are terribly sorry, Dr. Williams,” he says coldly. “My wife has been so frightened of what is to come. I thought showing her the room would comfort her.” He steps around her, pulling me with him, eyeing the muscular orderlies with a contemptuous sniff. They’re both dressed in spotless blue scrubs, but it’s clear what they’re here for.

“We will return to our stateroom,” Mason says. With a haughty flick of his hand, he sneers, “do bill me for the additional cleaning. Come, darling. I’ll help you get dressed.”

“We’re not finished with your examination,” the doctor says sharply.

Like a message from heaven - or more likely, Xenia - the lights flicker overhead and there’s a soft chime from the doctor’s phone. Checking it with a frown, she nods. “Very well, I’ll set up a time this afternoon to go over instructions for tomorrow. Until then, no solid food after three and then clear liquids only.”

“Send me the bill for re-sterilizing the room?” I start laughing the minute we’re back in the room, “like the twenty-five million euro bill the Bianchis are paying isn’t enough?” I’m laughing much harder than the comment deserves, but I’m both shaky and giddy and I sit down abruptly.

“Are you all right?” Mason smiles politely, like he’s seen other people do it and understands that it’s appropriate for the situation. I remember how rigid he was during my examination, patting my back like touching me was physically painful.

“I dinnae know how ye do this shite all the time.” I’m rubbing my stomach, trying to make it settle down. “Do we have to set an appointment to see our ‘wellness coach?’ We must get these flash drives over to Xenia and Catriona.”

“Already done.” He’s rapidly tapping out a text on his phone. “Go change into something you’d wear to see a wellness coach.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Those stretchy pants you girls wear?”

Stifling a chuckle, I say, “I’ll go see if Guilia has any Versace leggings in her wardrobe.”

A smiling Ian, dressed in a set of white joggers and a t-shirt with The Zephyr’s emblem on it, pleasantly escorts us past the guest in the “wellness room” and into the back.

“Well, where are they going?” The woman is frowning petulantly, wearing a big diamond necklace with her lounge pants and a push-up sport bra that’s sending her breasts bulging ominously over the straining spandex top.

Ian flashes her a dazzling smile. “That’s the cryo room, Mrs. Melendez, it’s quite… uncomfortable,” he says in a soothing British accent. “I’ll be back to lead you through those cool-down stretches in one moment. We can take all the time that you need.”

He hustles us through the door as she readjusts her top.

Xenia seizes the flash drives. “Yes! You beautiful bitches, I knew you could do it!” A hundred different images flicker across her three monitors like fireflies. I dinnae understand any of it, but the Evil Genius chortle she’s letting out tells me she knows it’s good.

“Were you behind the power surge in the clinic earlier? If so, ye saved our arses.”

“That would be me,” she smiles maliciously, “I started with a couple of sump pump failures this morning, and when the engineering crew mopped that up, I moved on to random power outages around the ship. They may have put all the medical equipment on a separate backup generator, but the lights are still on the ship’s main grid.”

“Has anyone… They haven’t started operating yet, right? No one’s been…” My throat closes up. What if they’ve already started?

“No, don’t worry, not yet. The data your drive picked up is fucking incredible - all the patient’s names, procedures, schedules, who they’re matched with - we have to isolate today’s operations so we can hide those donors before they come for them.”

“The doctor brought in a couple of the medical orderlies in to loom over us,” I shudder. “Those bastards are built like tanks. They’re not there to handle bedpans.”

Her fingers freeze over her keyboard for a moment.

“What? What’s wrong?”

She turns to look at me, “Your friend Carol is scheduled for this afternoon.”

Naff - Scottish slang for tacky.