Page 260 of The Black Trilogy

“Maybe I’ll have toast.”

Luke opened the fridge, but when he picked up the seventeen-grain wholemeal brick inside, he changed his mind. Mack was right; coffee was definitely the way to go. It might help him to lose a few pounds, anyway.

Mack poured a gallon of milk into her own coffee then gulped it back and shoved the cup in the dishwasher. “Gotta dash.” She gave him a little wave before disappearing out the door.

Left in the house by himself, Luke took the opportunity to have a quick look around. When he’d been here before, exploring had been the last thing on his mind, and he’d only seen a small fraction of the rooms. As he wandered the corridors, he soon found Albany House was even bigger than he first thought.

He saw few personal touches outside the bedrooms. No notes stuck on the fridge. No shoes lined up in the hallway. No books on the coffee table in the lounge. His thoughts turned to the house’s owner. Emmy had proved to be an enigma. Who was she, really?

He’d only find out one way, and that was by finding her. After one more cup of coffee, he returned to the control room, ready to work. Mack had set him up as a user the previous day, albeit not with full access rights, so when he commanded the systems to turn on, they did.

The monitors spanning the wall showed live feeds of similar rooms the world over. He read the captions at the bottom. Paris. London. Los Angeles. Berlin. And Richmond. Luke groaned as he spotted Nick seated at a desk, head down as he stared at a sheaf of papers.

Should Luke just ignore him? Tempting, but sooner or later they’d have to speak. Might as well get it over with.

“Good morning,” he said. Could Nick hear?

Nothing. He clicked on a speaker icon and tried again. This time Nick looked up.

“Morning, Luke. Nate mentioned you’d come in. It’s been a few weeks, hasn’t it? How are you doing? And Tia?”

How indeed? The truth was, Luke had avoided the subject. He didn’t want to think about the kidnapper or the shadow that man had cast over his life and Tia’s. The police liaison officer had called the other day to say they’d transferred the man to Broadmoor, which was probably the best place for him.

“I’m just trying to get back to normal.”

Or as normal as things could be with Emmy involved. And now Mack. Her luscious face filled his mind again, and it took a second for him to realise Nick was speaking to him.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked if Mack gave you a briefing?”

“Yes, she explained the situation. She wanted a hand getting into the Syrian military networks.”

“We all appreciate any help you can give. Emmy seemed to think you were good at looking into places you shouldn’t be.”

“That’s one way to put it, I suppose. I’m planning to carry on where Mack and I left off last night, unless there’s anything else you’d rather I do?” Luke erred on the side of politeness. After all, who knew what Emmy had told Nick about him? Maybe she’d played them both.

“No, you get on with that. We’ve found no sign of Emmy after her phone cut out. Nate’s been analysing satellite feeds while Mack’s team’s been searching through internet traffic. Dan’s acting as liaison with various intelligence agencies, and I’m planning a possible rescue mission with Logan and Jed. Plus we’ve got another seventy or so staff supporting us.”

“That’s a lot of people.”

“Yeah, well, it’s Emmy, isn’t it? Just give one of us a shout if you find anything, no matter how insignificant it might seem. We’ve got the manpower to run down every lead.”

“Will do.”

Luke worked steadily, but the translation took too long. After persevering for a couple of hours, he stopped and re-jigged some of the language algorithms in his search program. It may have taken him ninety minutes, but when he settled back into the hunt, he found it worked much faster.

He left the chatter from the Richmond control room on in the background. Staff bustled back and forth, a hive of quiet efficiency. Despite the obvious tension, there were no raised voices, no tempers flaring. He couldn’t help being impressed by the organisation.

At one point, he heard some of the men discussing Emmy’s mental state. Nate and Nick were involved, as well as Logan and a guy with shoulder-length dirty blond hair and a large, greenish bruise spreading across his cheek. From his leg, encased in plaster and propped up on the desk, Luke assumed that was Jed.

“So, how was she doing?” Nate asked. “She admitted before she left that she still wasn’t herself but insisted she’d be fine.”

Luke felt a little guilty for eavesdropping, but curiosity got the better of him, so he turned the volume up.

“That was the strange thing,” Logan said. “When we got to Syria, the old Emmy came back. There was none of that hesitancy or lack of confidence she’d been showing since Black died. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

Jed confirmed that. “She took charge, got on with things. Even when she saw Phil, she did what she had to, no hesitation. It was vintage Emmy. I saw no issues with her performance at all.”

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