Death of an Adept

"Aye, and then we'll destroy it," McLeod said. "You didn't touch this, did you?"

"Are you kidding?" Harry said with a touch of indignation. "I've learned something these past few weeks."

"Aye, so you have," McLeod said with a smile. Pocketing the ring, he added, "Once all the dust from this affair dies down, you and I need to have a serious talk."

"Just name the place and the time," Harry said with a grin. "Just now, though, I've got to stand in for the flying Red Cross."

After takeoff, as the heavily laden Lynx droned across the night, Adam looked on from his stretcher bed as Ximena adjusted the flow on lolo McFarlane's IV and then shifted farther to check on the wounded SAS pilot. Exhaustion weighed heavily upon him, but he fought it off, waiting for a chance to speak with her. He got his chance a moment later when she came back to check his blood pressure yet again.

"That's the third time you've done that in the past quarter hour," he noted gently.

Ximena looked down at him over the bridge of her nose. "You have your vocation; I have mine."

Adam captured her hand and held it. "Are you angry with me?"

"No, but humor me," Ximena said. "I'm feeling a wee bit insecure. If I can put up with being frightened out of my wits for the past three days, you can put up with being fretted over, now that the danger's past."

She mollified the briskness of this declaration by leaning down to kiss him lingeringly on the mouth. The sweetness of it gave his heart a lurch when he remembered how close they had come to losing one another.

"I really am sorry about all this," he told her, when she shifted her lips to their joined hands.

"What's to be sorry about? I can't say you didn't warn me," she replied.

"True," Adam said, "but there was more I might have told you. And if I had, this whole affair might have been resolved sooner. I shouldn't have been so close-mouthed about lolo McFarlane's diary. And if I'd rung McLeod the very next morning - "

"Adam Sinclair, don't you dare go playing the 'if game!" she warned. "You were doing your best to make the right decisions at the time. And I'm willing to believe that you succeeded."

Adam reached up and brushed her cheek, smiling faintly.

"Thank you," he whispered. "I wish I could promise you something like this won't ever happen again."

"I haven't asked you to," she replied. "Suffice it to say that I love you too much to let anyone or anything scare me away. Now get some sleep. If you're determined to be fit enough for a wedding in five days' time, you're going to have to cooperate with your very grumpy doctor!"

Thanks to the discreet offices of friends in high places, the facts surrounding the rescue of Sir Adam Sinclair from the clutches of his kidnappers were never allowed to surface in the media. Any resentment that might have been harbored by journalists on that account, however, was soon assuaged by the newsworthy manner in which Sir Adam and his radiant bride celebrated their marriage on the following Saturday.

The features and photographs detailing the wedding and reception dominated the society pages for several days in succession. The romantic glamour surrounding the match continued to sell newspapers, prompting a number of society reporters to join the small crowd of well-wishers who gathered at Edinburgh Airport a week later to welcome the couple back from their short honeymoon abroad.

As Sir Adam and the new Lady Sinclair settled into the waiting comfort of a classic Bentley, their departure was noted at a distance by two observers in a yellow Mercedes, rendered anonymous by oversized sunglasses, deep-brimmed hats, and well-wrapped scarves. The driver was a man with a lean, wiry build. The passenger was a woman with heavily bandaged hands, whose painted lips curled in studied malice as the Bentley slipped away into traffic.