Free Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) by Sarah Woodbury

trying to memorize where they were going. Callum would
know all that already, of course, but she needed to face the fact
that they might separate her from him, as they had David, and she
might have to figure some of this stuff out on her own. She needed
a lot more information about who these people were and what they
wanted before she could even formulate the right questions to ask.
Until then, she would do her best to help Callum, or at the very
least, not get in his way.
    She half hoped they’d end up in an
underground bunker like in Torchwood , but after twenty
minutes, they pulled up in front of a nondescript office building,
gray, with five floors of windows above a lobby and a massive
antenna array on the roof. For a minute, they waited in the street
at the entrance to the building, double-parked, and then they took
a sharp left and rolled down a long ramp into an underground
garage.
    “Is this where you worked?” Cassie said.
    “Yes.” Callum sat straighter in the seat.
He’d had to adjust his sword to an awkward angle in order to sit
next to her, since modern SUVs weren’t designed to accommodate
medieval weaponry. Like Cassie’s, his linen shirt and wool cloak
were still damp from the sea. The humidity was steaming up her
window, since the driver had turned on the heat.
    “If they keep us separated for long,” Callum
said, “I’m going to be very unhappy.”
    Cassie was already unhappy. The van with the
riot squad had pulled into a space ahead of them. Beyond it, the
SUV into which they’d put David parked across three spaces. Nothing
happened for a few seconds, and then the doors opened. One of the
agents hauled David out. He was wearing handcuffs and had a bag
over his head.
    “Callum!” Cassie surged forward in her seat
and then sat back, having forgotten that she was still seatbelted
in.
    “I see him.” Callum ground his teeth.
    “What could they be charging him with?” she
said.
    Nobody in their vehicle gave any sign of
getting out. Driscoll was completely focused on the computer tablet
in his lap and hadn’t looked up. All Cassie and Callum could do was
sit, watching Natasha march David across the garage, heading
towards the elevators.
    “They don’t necessarily have to be charging
him with anything,” Callum said. “Since 9/11, there’s been some
leeway in the timeline for arrests. Especially considering his lack
of papers and the way we came here, I’m sure they could easily
trump something up having to do with terrorism.”
    They’d been speaking in medieval Welsh, even
though Cassie’s spoken use of it was still pretty poor, but Callum
had said the last sentence in English. That distracted Driscoll
from his tablet enough to turn around in his seat. “You think that
little of us, do you, Callum?”
    “You tell me, Driscoll,” Callum said. “Do
you see what they’ve done to David?”
    Driscoll’s brow furrowed. “What are you—”
But then at the look on Callum’s face, he turned to the front in
time to see David disappearing into the elevator, his arms locked
behind his back and Natasha holding his arm since he couldn’t see
anything through the bag. Driscoll sat back in his seat. “Huh.”
    Callum leaned forward. “What’s going on,
John?”
    “I don’t know. But I promise you I will find
out.”
    “What’s going to happen to us?” Cassie said.
“Why don’t we have bags on our heads?”
    “My orders were to provide you with
necessities and space in a conference room to write your report.”
Driscoll looked back at Cassie. “Together.”
    Callum pointed at Driscoll’s tablet. “What
are they saying about me?”
    “Nobody’s saying much of anything yet,”
Driscoll said. “You’ve just arrived.”
    “They’re saying something,” Callum said. “I
caught a glimpse of what you were writing on your tablet. What are
they passing my disappearance off as—some sort of PTSD mental
break?”
    Driscoll grunted. “It’s one option. You were
with the Security