"So what was it that fitted?" Wilbur's voice made her jump slightly. It was getting on towards lunch time. They were still trapped in the hotel room, Shaw lying prone on the bed, Wilbur in the chair, his legs stuck out.
"Huh?"
"In the BDSM – what fitted?"
"It's the DSM, you moron."
"Oh, sorry. My mistake." His smirk suggested it was no mistake at all.
She decided to ignore this. "I prefer to be alone. I don't have friends. Don't even want 'em. I don't care about other people. No empathy."
"Hm. What else?"
"I have a flat affect-"
"A what?"
"Not much emotional expression. Verbally or non-verbally."
"Where I come from, we call that a stiff upper lip. It's considered to be a virtue. Anyway, in your case it's bullshit. I've seen plenty of emotional expression from you in the last twelve hours. You enjoy teasing me, for a start." He turned a little in his chair, evidently finding the prolonged inactivity as confining as she did.
"What makes you think that?" she couldn't resist asking.
"Your eyes sparkle." She stared hard at him, but he seemed quite serious. "You see, Sameen, I think that personality disorder stuff is crap. You're just a natural loner who keeps her emotions private. Nothing wrong with that, I'm much the same. I think a long time ago, maybe when you were quite young, some miserable git told you you were a bit peculiar. And you took that to heart and withdrew from people even more. And then as you got older you realised you could make people uncomfortable by playing that role, and you quite enjoyed one-upping them like that, and so you kept doing it. It became a habit. And then you stumbled on the BDSM-"
"DSM!"
"-Whatever. And it gave you a nice handy label for yourself, a justification for your behaviour and an excuse to stop trying to make any connections, and so hey presto! You tell yourself you have an Axis Two personality disorder. And the rest, as they say, is history."
Shaw sat and digested this for a moment. "I thought you weren't interested in psychology."
"I'm not, in general. Your psychology, on the other hand – I find that fascinating."
"Fascinating?" She didn't know what to make of this.
"Fascinating, entrancing, captivating, enthralling..." He offered a lazy smile. His eyes were suddenly a very deep sea-green, she noticed.
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to romance me, Wilbur? 'Cause it's not working."
"Romance you? He'd need to be a bold fellow who tried that. Still, faint heart ne'er won fair lady..." The maddening smile was still intact, but his eyes became serious. "Anyway, my name's not Wilbur. I'm David."
xxxx
"So let me get this straight," said Reese. "Finch has Pat, so he's safe for now." His mouth tightened involuntarily as he uttered his cousin's name. "We have Grandpa well guarded here. The SIS hit team is going to have trouble fulfilling their brief. But Shaw's disappeared and Finch can't find her, and we can't go looking for her, or the British team, without leaving one of our Numbers unguarded."
"That would seem to be the situation," agreed Carter. They were back in the lounge opposite Grandpa's room while the nursing staff changed the old man's bedding and gave him a wash and shave.
Reese rubbed his eyes. He'd been awake for most of the past twenty-four hours, and he felt badly in need of a change of shirt. "Fusco's had a night's sleep now..." But his voice trailed away as he considered the likely outcome if MI6 arrived to find Fusco guarding Grandpa. Lionel might be a valuable asset in most situations, but Reese wasn't so sure of his ability to fight off a team of experienced intelligence operatives. And leaving Carter on her own in this situation was not an option either.
He stood up, massaging his lower back. "I don't think we have much choice, Joss. We've got a Mexican stand-off right now. We have to do something to break it. Maybe Athene's suggestion will help."
I'm so glad you're seeing reason.
He glowered up at the security cam in the corner of the room. "We'll come to your meeting. But that's as far as it goes. And Grandpa stays safe while we're not here to guard him. Okay?"
That's all that's required. Truly. And yes, I'll make sure nothing happens to 'Grandpa', how sweet. Now, now. No need to glare at me like that, John!
And then there was silence.
Xxxxx
Finch sat at the dining room table at the safe house, trying to ignore the relentless chatter of the TV as McKay flicked from channel to channel to channel. It wasn't so much that the man's tastes ran to the banal. It was more that he seemed to have no discernible preferences at all. Sports. Shopping. Reality TV. A televangelist for a few minutes; Finch was vaguely surprised at how long that one lasted. More shopping. Talk show. Sport again. Once McKay had run through the full range of channels on offer he started again from the beginning, flicking faster this time. Finch resisted the urge to scream, and focussed on the security camera footage.
Finally, a result! He picked up Ms Shaw with McKay, walking along the street only half a block from Sundowner. They moved out of range, but with the time stamp on the footage it wasn't hard to pick them up again on the next camera, and the next until they came to the traffic cam monitoring the next street crossing. There it became a little confused. The low definition black and white image meant he could only vaguely make them out in the crowd waiting to cross the street, and when the mob surged across he lost her. McKay emerged on the other side alone. Finch saw him hesitate. His body language seemed to indicate confusion. He looked back at the other side of the street. Then he shrugged and walked off, out of range of the camera.
Harold played the segment back several times. Something had happened in that knot of people. Something had separated Ms Shaw from McKay, and it must have been something… unusual… to have worked against someone of her formidable abilities. For a time he focussed his attention on one couple – a leather jacketed man supporting a drunken woman who seemed similar to Ms Shaw in height and build. But the lighting and pixellation of the images meant it was impossible to be even reasonably sure, let alone certain. And there were several other couples in the vicinity who seemed to be likewise engaged in staggering, vomiting and even more sordid activities. Eventually he discarded them. Leaning back in his chair, he stared unseeingly at the scene in front of him: McKay slumped listlessly on the couch, Bear lying prone but alert on the rug next to the table. Shafts of sunlight coming through the windows fell on the polished floor; dust motes drifted in the air. He sighed. He should phone Detective Carter to let her know of this latest development, not that it would come as a surprise or that he had much to report, really. He pulled his cell out and made the call.
Xxxx
Lunch was more from the room service menu. This time Shaw was more restrained, though the prices were still pretty astronomical, even the cheap options like the burger. David skipped lunch entirely.
"The smart kid from the slums," she said through her burger. "That was you, right?"
"Smart-arse was the term I used. Not quite the same thing. But yes, that was me."
"So…?"
He was lying on his back on the bed this time while she sat over on the sofa trying not to get sauce on the pale upholstery.
"You want me to give information away for free?"
She wasn't quite sure what to make of that smile. Teasing? Predatory? She set that aside. "Okay. How about a trade?"
"Oooh. You show me yours and I'll show you mine?"
Definitely teasing, she decided. She wondered for just a moment what it would be like to have sex with someone you liked. Hell, what would it be like to actually like someone?
She licked the last of the sauce from her fingers. "Okay. You go first."
He was apparently not going to take his own words literally, because he lay back, fingers laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling again. "I was born in the East End. London Docklands. But when I was nineteen I committed an unforgivable sin."
"Sounds juicy," murmured Shaw.
"Not so much. I joined the Met."
"Wait, you joined the opera?" She was surprised.
He picked up a pillow from beside him and threw it at her. "Not the opera, you idiot. The Met. The Filth. The rozzers. The Metropolitan Police."
"Oh." Shaw nodded understanding. "Hey, wait. You're a real cockney. You don't talk like one."
"You fink so, luv? What's a cockney talk like ennyhow?" The change in his voice was so sudden and so complete it made her jump. He sat up on the bed. "I changed how I spoke so people wouldn't judge me, wouldn't assume...except it didn't work. Not completely, anyway. Once I'd finished my probation period as a copper, they put me in police intelligence. With my family background, I had a special insight into London's organised crime. They said." He grimaced at some remembered aggravation. "I suppose I can't really complain – they also let me study part time at the University of London for a degree in criminology. That helped me shed the accent. But after a few years there I moved across into Special Branch. Anti-terrorism along with the organised crime, the really nasty stuff. Than another sideways move into MI5, domestic counterterrorism,and then the final step in my moral dissolution was to join SIS three years ago." Shaw suspected he was leaving some things out, but for now she was content to leave it.
"So… are you married? In a relationship?" She mentally rolled her eyes at herself for even asking.
His eyebrows flicked up. "Married to my work. I'm not much for family. They slow you down. They can… drag you into things you don't want." He seemed to stop himself from saying more. "How about you, Sameen? Anyone? A significant other?"
"Hell, no. My philosophy is to get in, get done, get out. We're all adults here, right?"
He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips as he considered this. "Why do we have to be adults?"
"Huh?"
"I'm just saying. It's no fun having to be the grown-up all the time." His eyes suddenly narrowed. "So, Sameen – are you ticklish?"
She eyed him in sudden alarm. "What? No. I don't think so."
"Aha! You don't know – that means no-one's ever tickled you, doesn't it." There was a dangerous light in his eyes.
She backed away. "Uh-uh, no way..."
He rose from the bed and advanced towards her, hands out, fingers crooked and ready.
"David, if you-"
"If I what? If I tickled you until you were helpless, and then tied you up and kissed you all over? And then made slow love to you? What then?"
She blinked, continuing to back away. "I'm not wild about the being tied up part." Wait, that wasn't what she'd meant to say…
He paused. "You said last night you quite liked being tied up."
"Nah, I was just messing with you."
"Oh." He resumed his advance. "Well, scratch the tying up, then. But the tickling stays..."
xxxx
Reese lay stretched out on the row of seats in the visitor lounge. He could see the staff casting mystified glances at Joss and him; their constant presence for nearly eighteen hours was plainly causing some puzzlement. But he'd seen Joss talking to a senior nurse an hour or so back. She'd obviously given them something to placate them, to judge from the smiles and hand-waving which had gone on. In any case, she hadn't seen fit to disturb him, and so he'd decided to stretch out and grab an hour's shut-eye. He was starting to feel very hungry; he firmly told his belly that it would feel better once he was asleep. He closed his eyes and began methodically to relax his muscles, starting with his face. It didn't take long for the background noises of the hospital to fade out…
"John? I'm sorry to wake you. I just had a call from Finch." Joss was crouched next to him, one hand on his shoulder.
He sat up. "What did he say?"
"Nothing very much. He's having some trouble tracking Shaw after she left the club with McKay, but he's narrowing things down. He's hoping to get a fix on her within the next couple of hours."
"We're a go for the meeting tonight. Let's hope he can find her before that."
Reese sat up. He could feel the rush of time flowing past them. Things were moving to some kind of conclusion, he could feel it. But it seemed wrong to be helplessly swept towards that denouement. He hated the sensation. He wanted to be the one making things happen, not just sitting there like a rabbit on the railroad tracks. But he forced himself to breathe deep, find his centre and relax. One thing at a time. Deal with this meeting tonight. Then find the bastards who had snatched Shaw and…. savour the look on her face when he came to get her. A tiny smile turned the corners of his mouth upwards. Yup, she'd be pissed as hell. It would even be worth the worry and aggravation just to see her trying to walk out of whatever hole she was being kept in, trying to act normal.
Xxxx
Shaw was dozing when David's cell phone chirped. The ring gradually got louder and more insistent, which resulted in an increasingly panicked search for the damned thing. They finally found it in his pants pocket, which was fine except that his pants had somehow ended up jammed down the end of the bed, stuffed into the space where the sheet tucked in at the bottom.
"Martin." David's tones were clipped and businesslike. Though he didn't retreat to the bathroom to take the call, she noticed. So who the hell was Martin? She shrugged mentally. The search through the bed for the phone had jolted her out of her post-coital lassitude. She'd been enjoying the unfamiliar sensation, and so she lay back again to try to recapture it. David was sitting up, though, listening intently to the voice on the other end of the phone. He seemed to be making a lot of dubious "Uh-huh" noises, interspersed with the occasional incredulous "What?" Finally he sighed, said "Okay" and ended the call.
He tossed the phone onto the night stand and lay back. "Looks like our little fling might be coming to an end. Martin's got some sort of meeting set up to solve the problem we're here to deal with. It might be all over tonight, in which case I'm on the first flight back to London tomorrow."
"O-kay," she said slowly. "So where does that leave me?"
"In a nice comfy bed in a hotel room with me. For now."
"That wasn't what I meant and you know it."
He rolled over to face her. One hand plucked a strand of hair from her face and rearranged it. She tensed slightly, but let him continue petting her hair. "If you were good enough to work for ISA – and then walk away from them and drop off the grid – you're good enough to get out of this room and walk away from here. Aren't you."
She didn't reply.
"I knew pretty much as soon as I took the zip ties off that I wouldn't be able to hold you here. Unless you wanted to be held."
There was a strange feeling in her throat. A painful knot seemed to be growing there, matched by an increasing pain in the centre of her chest. Not too bad right now – she'd rate it probably a three or four on a ten-point scale, but definitely getting worse by the second. David's hand continued its slow, repetitive movements, smoothing her hair.
"So you decided to seduce me to keep me here," she said, struggling to speak past the knot.
The hand stopped. "What?" He sat up. "Bloody hell, Sameen, did you think I was working round to that? No!"
"Oh." The knot was still there in her throat, but the chest pain abruptly eased.
"You've got a real thing about that, haven't you. You thought I was fake right from the start. What the hell do I have to do to convince you otherwise, open up a vein?"
"Well, if you're not fake, what is this? World's fastest case of Stockholm Syndrome?"
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What is what? You're asking me to explain to you what you're feeling?"
Shaw was suddenly aware that she'd said too much. Because this was certainly not a one-night stand. She didn't do relationships, oh hell no. But if it wasn't a quick fling, and it wasn't a relationship… what was it?
To be continued...