Liberation Day by Andy McNab Page A

reached the main drag and waited for the lights, along with ten or so other pedestrians heading for the lot. “So, how was your trip? I notice I didn’t get a card of the Pyramids like I was promised.”
    “I know, I know. It’s just that I thought by the time I got back into Cairo and mailed it I’d be here. Especially this time of year…”
    “Not to worry. You’re back, that’s all that matters.”
    The traffic stopped and the green signal ushered us across.
    “Did you get hit by the storms?”
    “We were much farther south.”
    “I was worried.” Those little lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “Six hundred people died in the floods in Algeria….”
    I looked straight ahead. “Six hundred? I didn’t know.”
    We’d just gotten in among the cars when she stopped and faced me, her arms pushed in under mine and linked around my waist. “You stink like a camel, but it really is good to have you back all the same.” She kissed me lightly on the lips, her skin cold but soft. “You know what? I don’t want you to go away ever again. I like you right here, where I can see you.”
    We stayed wrapped in each other and I fought the urge to tell her the truth. Sanity prevailed. I would find a time and a place to do that, but not now, not yet. She was too happy, I was too happy. I wanted to keep the real world outside.
    She let me go. “Magical-mystery-tour time.”
    We got to her mother’s Plymouth sedan. Carrie hadn’t gotten around to buying a car since she’d gotten back: she’d been too busy. She’d arranged the transportation of Aaron’s body from Panama to Boston, then the cremation, before returning to Panama to scatter his ashes in the jungle. After that, she’d had to get Luz settled into high school, and herself into her new job. She’d also had to set up house—then change her life around again when a not-too-reliable Brit turned up begging for a spare room.
    We split as she went to the driver’s side of the Plymouth, reaching into her bag for the keys and hitting the fob. The car unlocked with a bleep and a flash of the indicators. I pulled open the door, threw my bag into the back, and climbed in, as Carrie closed her door and put on her belt. That frown of hers had reappeared, the one that went along with the raised eyebrow and slight tilt of the head.
    The engine turned over and we rolled out of the parking space. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about a whole bunch of stuff while you were away. There’s something very important I want to say to you.”
    I reached across and pulled off her hat before running my fingers slowly through her hair, as she negotiated the Plymouth over the potholed pavement. We hit the main drag and turned left up the north shore for the ten miles to Marblehead.
    “Good important or bad important?”
    She shook her head. “Not yet. It’ll be easier for me to explain when we get there.”
    I nodded slowly. “Okay. Tell me some other stuff, then.”
    Luz liked her new school, she said, and had started to make some really nice friends; she was staying over with one of them for the rest of the week to give us time together. She also told me how her mother’s bed-and-breakfast had picked up a little since September. Oh, and that she thought there might be a part-time job for me at the yacht club as a barman. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t need a job serving pints of Sam Adams for weekend water warriors. Come Wednesday, I was going to be a bona fide, flag-waving citizen; the U.S. was my oyster, and all that sort of thing.
    Marblehead’s old town was like a film set: brightly painted wooden houses with neat little gardens sitting on winding streets. Cornish fishermen had settled there in the 1600s, maybe because the rocky coastline reminded them of home. The only fishermen there now dangled lines off the backs of their million-dollar boats in the Boston yacht club.
    Marblehead today was where old Boston money met new Boston money.