Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Bryce
The embassy conference room had been polished within an inch of its life.
Brass fixtures glimmered in the overhead light, the parquet floor shone, and the mahogany table stretched long enough to host a banquet instead of a crisis briefing.
But despite the elegant trappings, the room throbbed with unease.
Every chair was filled—British uniforms with their medals catching the light, American suits stiff with formality, and the occasional civilian analyst perched on the edge of their seat like a nervous schoolboy waiting to be called on.
A map of England was projected on the far wall, red circles marking Gloucestershire like angry welts.
The conversation volleyed back and forth in clipped bursts.
“Three drones. RAF Fairford airspace.”
“Intact recovery. Mostly intact.”
“No casualties.”
“Analysis ongoing.”
The words weren’t even full sentences anymore, just shards of language—jargon, acronyms, numbers. They cracked through the air like static.
I pressed my pen against the notebook in front of me, the rhythmic tap-tap-tap betraying the strain I tried to conceal.
It wasn’t nerves exactly. It was pressure.
Like someone had placed a heavy glass dome over the table and filled it with all the oxygen in the embassy, then locked us in together to see which of us would suffocate first.
I stopped tapping. Leaned forward. My reflection on the glossy surface of the table showed furrowed brows, and a mouth set tight.
“What matters is speed,” I said, letting the words slice clean across the chatter.
The effect was instant. A dozen heads turned in my direction. The Americans looked expectant, the British guarded, the civilians grateful someone had dared to interrupt.
“They’re measuring us,” I continued. “Not just our radar or our missiles. Us. If we waste hours massaging language into reports, Moscow learns we hesitate. They’ll see exactly how long it takes us to answer the door when they knock.”
Silence stretched. Somewhere down the hall, someone quickly answered a ringing phone.
Finally, an air marshal cleared his throat. His silver hair gleamed, and his posture was immaculate. “With respect, Ambassador, our analysts haven’t confirmed hostile intent. It may have been simple reconnaissance.”
I arched my brow. “Simple? Since when does Moscow do anything simple?”
The words landed harder than I intended, but I didn’t take them back. A few American uniforms nodded, lips twitching in silent agreement. Across the table, one British colonel looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.
And then there was Nigel Thorne.
He hadn’t said a word all morning. Not one. Instead, he lounged with the posture of a man enjoying a matinée, one hand smoothing an already-perfect lapel, the other resting lightly against his chin. When I spoke, his eyes lit with private amusement, as if I were performing for his entertainment.
The conversation resumed, but more carefully now. Threat analysis. Airspace sovereignty. NATO response protocols. I jotted notes, though I didn’t need them; every word etched itself into the back of my mind, sharp and indelible.
And beneath it all, Nigel’s silence pressed on me more heavily than the chatter. He was waiting—always waiting—for the exact moment to pounce. Or at least that’s how my exhausted and paranoid brain perceived it.
After nearly an hour, I shut my notebook with a decisive thud. The sound cracked like a gavel.
“That’s enough for now,” I said. “We’ll reconvene once we’ve got a full intelligence report. In the meantime, I expect hourly updates. And if Moscow sneezes, I want to know which way the wind is blowing.”
Chairs scraped back, polished shoes scuffed the floor, voices dropped from official to conversational as the military filed out. Some left briskly. Others lingered to exchange murmurs with colleagues. The room slowly emptied of its uniforms, its clipped accents, its official gravity.
Until there was only Nigel.
He hadn’t budged. He stayed exactly where he was, perched elegantly on the edge of his chair, one leg crossed over the other so that his silk sock flashed when his trouser hem shifted.
I gathered my papers with deliberate precision, stacking them until the corners lined up perfectly. “Was there something else, Mr. Thorne?”
His smile deepened as if I’d given him precisely the cue he’d been waiting for. “Not at all, Mr. Ambassador. Only a slight curiosity.”
The lilt in his tone wasn’t threatening exactly. If my ears were to be believed, he sounded amused.
“I wondered how you found your outing with Prince Arthur,” he said lightly. “Horseback riding in the countryside, wasn’t it? A refreshing break before being yanked back by our Russian friends.”
My spine went rigid. Of all the questions in the world, he chose that one. Not payloads, not reconnaissance patterns, not NATO policy. Arthur.
“Yes,” I drawled. “We went riding. As you noted, I returned sooner than expected.”
Nigel’s eyes sparkled with a catlike gleam. “Everyone knows the young prince is spirited. One wonders what impression he makes in such close company.”
The compliment had sharp edges. He made it sound as though spending time with him was dangerous, reckless, scandalous. My chest tightened, but I kept my expression carefully neutral.
“He was gracious,” I replied, choosing each word with surgical precision. “And an excellent rider. The outing was quite pleasant.”
“Ah.” He nodded, with a single curt dip of the chin. “Pleasant. That’s good to know.”
He rose in one fluid motion, collecting his folio as though we’d been discussing nothing more consequential than the weather. At the door, he paused, casting me a glance over his shoulder.
“Do keep me informed,” he said, voice smooth as glass. “About the drones, of course. Though any other… developments are always welcome.”
And with that, he glided out, leaving behind the faintest trace of expensive cologne and the unmistakable tang of a warning.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I sat frozen, pulse drumming in my ears. Nigel’s words echoed in the silence, vague yet barbed. Why in God’s name was he interested in Arthur? He wasn’t an heir or high on the royal totem pole. Hell, he didn’t matter to the government beyond being occasional tabloid fodder.
And yet Nigel asked as though he were a chess piece already moving across the board.
I exhaled slowly, pressing my palms flat against the table. The polished wood was cool beneath my skin, steadying. But the unease Nigel left behind clung like smoke, seeping into the cracks of the room.
Damn it. Am I hopelessly out of my depth?
I’d never been the ambassador to a country that mattered this much, not in the way the UK mattered.
In other postings I’d been a glorified trader with a nice title—boosting exports, opening doors for American companies, ribbon-cutting with a practised smile.
Belize had been my first rodeo. The worst thing that happened there was a sunburned twenty-three-year-old from Ohio who’d picked a fight with a bartender and woke up in jail thinking he’d started an international incident.
I remembered the scrape of the chair against concrete, and the way his bravado crumbled when I said I was the ambassador. “Like, the ambassador-ambassador?” he’d slurred.
Those were simpler times.
Belize had mosquitoes that hunted in squadrons; Russia had drones.
The generals this morning had been clear in the way men are clear when they think they’re being reassuring.
NATO and the U.S. would handle it, they said.
Air corridors, rules of engagement, quiet phone calls that shifted continents by a degree.
I just needed to “stay apprised.” As if “apprised” were a temperature and I could set myself to it.
I’m a hands-on diplomat. It still surprised people—especially the men who mistook my Southern manners for softness. I flipped open my notebook to a clean page and wrote in small, neat letters: What can I do that only I can do?
The pen hovered, and I rubbed the ache between my eyes with my thumb and forefinger until sparks danced against the lids.
God, I needed a drink.
The decanter in the corner cabinet wasn’t strictly for show.
I imagined the warm bite of the liquid going down my throat, the way my shoulders would drop a quarter inch like pulling a pin from a grenade.
Three seconds of fantasy and I shut the cabinet with my mind.
Not now. Not with Nigel’s aftertaste still in the room and Moscow scratching at the door like a stray cat.
My pen came down again. I wrote Call Paula and underlined it twice. If anyone could tell me where the fault lines ran on this side of the Atlantic, it was my deputy. But she wasn’t who I really wanted to speak to.
The thought of Arthur unravelled me.
It happened the way memories do when you don’t invite them. Oak leaves shifting overhead, a patch of sun on his cheek, the horse’s breath pluming in the cool air. We’d leaned in without thinking, the way two magnets pull at each other even when you swear you’re holding them apart.
I sat back and let the chair cradle me. It would feel good to unwind with him.
Not as an ambassador confiding in a royal—God, no—but as a man who needed a friendly ear.
Arthur could make even silence feel like a conversation.
He listened with his entire face, that quicksilver smile pursing as if he knew a secret and you were about to be let in on it.
My phone lay face down on the blotter. I flipped it over. No new messages.
I opened a new text and stared at the blank field, the blinking cursor keeping time with my pulse. Would he want to meet with me? After I texted him yesterday, he’d agreed we could meet this week for a drink, but was Monday evening too soon? Would I seem to, hell, I don’t know.
“Desperate?” I whispered aloud. “Fuck it.”
I quickly tapped out a message.
I had the day from hell. Can we meet tonight? I could really use the company.