Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021), A BATEMAN [urban books to read TXT] 📗

himself and Caroline, although neither spoke about an operation the other was not involved in. His thoughts ran to Caroline and her recovery. She was such an athletic soul, so tenacious, too. She had been through the wringer and now carried the mental, physical, and emotional scars. King knew many of these scars would heal over time, but even time gave no succour to the deepest of wounds, the mental traumas that could not be seen, but always so painfully felt.

“I was wondering where you had gotten to.”

King turned around and Madeleine was right in front of him. She was a good deal shorter than himself, and he looked down at her and smiled. “I needed some fresh air,” he replied. He held up his cup. “Would you like a tea?” he asked.

“No, thanks. But I’ll get a coffee and perhaps we can find somewhere to sit?”

“Of course.” He watched her pour a cup of black coffee and she turned around, catching him looking at her. She smiled coyly and he could have sworn she pushed her bottom out a little. She certainly touched a lock of her glossy blonde hair. There wasn’t much more she could do than come right out and say she was interested in him. King could read most people like a book, but he had never been adept at reading whether a woman was interested in him or not. In his late teens he’d been invited in for coffee plenty of times, but he despised coffee and only drank tea and had made his excuses and left, only to realise later in life what the phrase had meant. To his consternation, now that he was in his forties and had found the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he could now read the signs perfectly well and noticed that he was never short of female attention for long.

Madeleine led the way through the crowd and to a row of seats near the starboard window. Outside the sky and sea were grey, but the windows were so steamed up it almost looked dark. She gave the window a wipe with her sleeve and said, “It looks monochrome out there. Like a black and white film. Like the fog as the boat approaches Skull Island in King Kong…” She sat down, the seats all facing forwards for riding out rough seas. “Have you seen Daniel?”

“Not recently.”

“Strange, he said he was going outside as well…”

King shrugged, sipped some of his tea. “There are two sides to a boat.”

“Ship,” she corrected him, then smiled.

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, I thought a marine salvage diver would know.”

King nodded. “I’m not entirely sure where the cut-off point is. I suppose it’s like when a pony becomes a horse. A definitive measurement. I don’t have a tape measure handy…”

She laughed. “In sailing, a ship has to have square rigged masts and must have at least three masts. Anything else is a boat.”

“Do you sail?”

“Not so much lately,” she replied. “But at university I joined a project to recreate a tall ship, and that was the definition. I was invited back, along with other alumni over the ten years it took to build and finally sail her, but I was on a research vessel off the Great Barrier Reef involved in climate change research into the sun bleaching coral. It was that research that opened the door for the placement with Aurora.”

“And you just met Daniel on the flight?” he asked. “It’s just that you two seem rather close. Are you two an item?”

“No!” she protested a little indignantly. “What makes you ask that?”

King shrugged. “You were always together. He couldn’t wait to get one over on me. I think he resented my presence, saw me as competition.”

“He is on the ship, you know. You’re using the past tense like he didn’t make the journey,” she chuckled. “Anyway, no, I’m not into him.” She paused. “But because you’ve noticed all these things, might I take it that you could be interested in me… even if just a little?”

“You can,” he lied. He smiled as Madeleine glanced around and reached out to touch his fingers delicately. He gave her hand a little squeeze in return. “And it feels good…”

“Yes, it does,” she said.

King was quickly working through some boundaries. Attractive though she was, she was twenty years younger, more girl than woman, and as flattering as he found her attention, the fact she was declaring her attraction towards him made him dubious. And then there was Caroline. King had never cheated on his wife, Jane. And he had never cheated on Caroline. He took a serious relationship with all the name implied. But what if getting close to Madeleine aided his operation? He had taken an oath for Queen and Country when he was recruited into MI6. He hadn’t exactly been sworn into MI5, more swept along with events, but it amounted to the same thing. He worked, put his life on the line, for his country. Not for the government – governments and Prime Ministers came and went, made the same mistakes, and never learned from their time in power - but the citizens who relied upon him, and people like him, to do unspeakable things in the shadows, so they may live in the light. He looked down at her and smiled. Her lips were moist and plump, and she had a habit of nibbling at her bottom lip. It looked seductive and inviting. He could feel a surge within him and knew if he didn’t check himself in time, he’d be getting in too deep.

King unwound his fingers and released her grip. He looked past her and wiped the window clear. “We’re here!” he said, a little too excitedly. His reaction sparked the interest of his fellow passengers, as he knew it would, and