Duval sat on the carpet with his back to the bed and a mostly eaten crust pinched between thumb and forefinger. He inspected the bit of bread, frowned and tossed it into the open box. It landed next to a stale bit of cheese. Duval rested his head against the mattress and closed his eyes. “What’s our next move?”
“I’m working on that,” Sam admitted.
Duval scrubbed his face with both hands. “It’s useless,” he moaned. “We’ll never make it. America is too big. The CIA has too many resources. Might as well give ourselves up.”
“Don’t say that,” Sam told him.
“It’s true.” Duval spread his hands. “Who are we kidding? Trains and planes are out of the question. They’ll be watching every highway. Looking for us at every border crossing. We’ll never make it out of France.”
“They haven’t caught us yet,” Sam said.
He gave a bitter laugh. “I never should have left the embassy.”
“We’ll make it,” Sam said. She needed time to think, and a break from his constant belly aching. She stood up, went to the bathroom door and stopped in the frame. “I got you this far. I’ll get you the rest of the way. I promise.”
Duval took a hit from his inhaler and said, “I’m scared, Sam.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” she told him. “Just don’t give up on me.”
He managed weak smile. “I’m not giving up. Just being realistic.”
Sam said, “I’m going to take a shower. Promise me you’ll still be here when I get out?”
“Where would I go?”
Sam shut herself in the bathroom, turned on the shower, closed the toilet lid and sat down. Hot tears welled up in her eyes. Her face crumpled. A tight knot formed in her chest. She choked back a sob. Everything had gone belly-up. All of her carefully laid plans had crumbled. Her career with the CIA was over. Half the law enforcement agencies in Europe would be looking for her, and Duval was right: They’d be lucky to make it to the corner. Sam had done her best and it wasn’t good enough.
Up until now, everything had been happening so fast that Sam had no time to think. But she had time now. She thought about what would happen when they finally caught her. She wouldn’t get a trial. No jury. Just a concrete room where she would be interrogated for days. When they were done, she would be shipped off to a maximum-security prison. Fear gripped her so hard it was a physical force that shook her body. Her hands trembled and a moan worked up from her throat. She slid down off the toilet onto the grimy linoleum, rested her forehead against the cold floor and begged God to send some help. As tears trailed down her cheeks in silent rivulets, Sam prayed, Please, God. I need help.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Burke dozed fitfully on one of the sofas scattered around the offices of the Operations Directorate. The action arm of the CIA works long hours. Missions in crisis mode can drag on for days and critical personnel are required to be on hand in case something breaks. Burke had located an unoccupied sofa in a quiet room that smelled strongly of lemon-scented cleaner, probably to mask a more offensive odor lingering underneath. Some joker had scrawled out a sign that read Safe Space and hung it on the door.
Burke wasn’t really asleep. He did very little of that lately. His mind was racing through thousands of potential scenarios, all of them bad. He couldn’t see any way to bring Sam out of this thing clean. It would help if he knew what she was mixed up in, but to figure that out he needed to know what Bonner had been working on, and Coughlin seemed to be doing everything in his power to run interference. If Burke didn’t know better, he’d think the two were in on it together. Maybe Bonner had been running an operation off the books and Coughlin was involved? It would certainly explain a lot of things. The more Burke thought about it, the more sense it made. Why else was Coughlin so intent on Grey making the capture? That left Burke with more questions than answers. What were Coughlin and Bonner up to? And how did Sam Gunn fit in the picture?
When Burke’s mind wasn’t working on the Samantha Gunn problem, it was shifting through the last six months of his personal life. His stalled marriage had finally imploded and his office romance had heated up. Madeline had kicked him out and Burke was now living in a cheap efficiency apartment in Foggy Bottom. No one at the office knew he and Maddie were split, but it was only a matter of time, and there was bound to be speculation when they found out. Dana’s name would come up. What a mess.
Someone laid a hand on his chest and Burke’s eyes shot open. Dana leaned over him. Her button-down blouse gave a generous view of her cleavage. She smiled, checked to be sure the door was closed, then gave him a quick kiss. Her lips were soft and eager. She whispered, “Wake up, black dynamite.”
Burke snorted, swung his legs off the sofa, and rubbed his eyes. “Has it been an hour already?”
Dana shook her head. “We caught a break.”
Burke was fully awake now. “Sam?”
“Looks like,” Dana told him. “A night clerk at a no-tell motel in Vesoul called in a possible.”
Burke pushed himself out of the sunken couch. Dana followed him out the door and down the hall toward the situation room. “When did it come in?” Burke asked.
“About two minutes ago.”
“Is Coughlin already in on it?”
“You kidding?” Dana said. “He’s foaming at the mouth.”
“What did you find out from the Ecuadorian embassy?”
“I think Duval left.”
“You think?” Burke asked.
She nodded. “I talked to a junior staffer at the embassy who told me Duval was safe and sound in his apartment on the third floor.”
Burke stopped and turned to face her. “And you think he was lying?”
“He never hesitated,” Dana said. “I asked if Duval was still there and he said yes right away. Didn’t even bother to check.”
“Good girl.” Burke resumed course. “Remind me to give you a raise.”
They reached the door to the situation room and Burke scanned his ID badge. The electronic lock chirped and the light turned green. Burke yanked open the frosted glass door. He motioned for Dana. She entered and Burke let the door hiss shut before asking, “What’s the latest?”
“We got her,” Coughlin said. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his eye winked. “She checked into a hotel in Vesoul, less than a mile from the autoroute exit where the police lost contact.”
“Have we got a positive ID?”
“Ninety-two percent.”
“I want to see it,” Burke said.
Coughlin turned to face him. “It’s ninety-two percent, Burke. That’s textbook positive. We’re moving on this.”
Burke turned Jameson. “Bring it up. I want to see it.”
The side of Coughlin’s face went through a series of spasms.
Jameson turned to his computer and keyed in commands. The screen filled with a dozen different angles from French traffic surveillance cams around the little hamlet of Vesoul. “This is the angle in front of the hotel,” he was saying. “See that couple? Watch as they get closer.”
The feed was choppy. The camera strung together stills at a frame rate of one per second. The effect was like watching an old black and white from the early days of motion pictures when cowboys raced across the silver screen on jerky steeds and Charlie Chaplin took pratfalls in double time. Only this movie was colorized. Sam and her unidentified counterpart walked up the sidewalk in juddering movements. The man had a pizza box in one hand. They stopped a few meters short of the hotel entrance, had a brief conversation, walked a little more, and then right before they got to the door, started pawing at each other like a couple of teenagers.
Jameson said, “Night clerk got suspicious when there were no sounds coming from the room, then he recognized the girl from news reports and called the cops.”
Coughlin stood with his fists on his hips. “Satisfied?”
There was nothing for it. Any denial at this point would only prove Burke was trying to ston
ewall the manhunt. He inclined his head. “That’s her, alright. Back the video up.”
Jameson ran the images in reverse. Sam and her friend raced backwards.
“Back, back, back,” Burke said. “There! Right there!”
The image froze. Sam was talking to the man holding the pizza box and he had turned his face up.
“Nice clear shot of his face,” Burke said. “Dana, who’s that looks like?”
“Hard to say, boss.” She put a finger to her lips.
“Looks just like Sacha Duval to me.” Burke turned to Coughlin. “What would Sacha Duval be doing in France with Samantha Gunn? Any ideas?”
Coughlin looked ready to chew nails. “Cut the crap, Burke. I don’t know who that man is. We have a positive on Gunn. I’ve already rerouted the other two drones. They’ll be overhead in minutes. You did your part. Now it’s time for my guys to take over.”
He pulled out his cell and dialed.
Dana shot Burke a tense look. The meaning was clear; if Grey and his boys caught up to Sam, she and Duval were dead. Burke crossed his arms over his barrel chest and frowned. What more could he do? His job was to locate Sam. Coughlin was in charge of the ground team.
While Coughlin relayed commands to the computer jockeys, Burke said, “I’m starving. Dana, run down to the cafeteria and grab me a sandwich.
She took the command in stride. “Sure. What do you want on it?”
“I’d better write it down so you don’t forget.” He took a scrap of paper from Jameson’s desk and a pen. He scribbled,
To DCI
Gunn found
Hotel LeBlonde in Vesoul
Sacha Duval involvement
Grey and company en route
Please advise
“Don’t forget the mayo.” Burke tore off the page and handed it to Dana.
“You got it.” Her eyes ran back and forth over the text and she nodded before letting herself out of the situation room. Burke watched her go and then turned back to find Coughlin eyeballing him. Burke gave a tight smile. Coughlin wasn’t stupid. He suspected something but he couldn’t prove anything, so he shook his head and turned back to the monitors.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was after nine in the evening when Armstrong finally logged out of her work terminal. It would be three in the morning in France. She had just hung up with the Director of National Intelligence. Burke’s message had turned the situation on its head. Sacha Duval represented a high-value target vital to national security which meant Armstrong could no longer keep this in-house. There was a time when the CIA director would have reported directly to the president. After 9/11, George W. Bush created the Director of National Intelligence position to oversee America’s various intelligence agencies in an attempt to force cooperation between the rival services. Like it or not, Armstrong had to bring the DNI into the loop.
He had been at a recital for his granddaughter when he got the call and wasn’t happy about being interrupted. Armstrong had spent ten minutes bringing him up to speed. She mistakenly thought he would be interested, or at the very least proactive. Instead he scheduled a 7:00 am meeting and told her not to call him after work hours. So much for burning the midnight oil. Armstrong could only roll her eyes and assure him it wouldn’t happen again.
A map of France was open on her desk with a circle around the tiny town of Vesoul. If it was true that Sacha Duval was out of the embassy, he would be headed to a non-extradition country. Staring down at the map, a dozen likely targets jumped out. Duval would have arranged for asylum before taking a chance on leaving the embassy and that meant there would be a trail, so Armstrong had tasked her people with digging through Duval’s phone calls and emails over the last six months.
With the meeting set for the morning and Jake incommunicado, Armstrong decided she might as well go home and get some sleep. She stood up, stretched, and gathered her purse. Her desk phone rang while she was balanced on one leg, putting on her heels. She reached for it.
“Armstrong.”
A switchboard operator told Jaqueline someone had been asking to speak with the director. “The calls are coming from Paris on an unsecured line. The gentleman refuses to give his name but claims to be your nephew, ma’am. This is the sixth time he’s called.”
Armstrong grabbed the burner cell from her desk. There were no missed messages. She said, “What’s the number?”
As the secretary relayed the digits, Armstrong punched them into the burner.
The switchboard operator asked, “Would you like me to route you through?”
Armstrong had already hung up and pushed send on the burner.
Noble picked up on the first ring. “I’ve been calling for hours. We haven’t got long. I’m on a stolen phone. It’ll probably get shut down any minute.”
“What happened?”
“I had another run-in with Le Milieu,” Noble told her. “I won’t go into the details over the phone. What did Duc find out from the pilots?”
“Never mind that,” Armstrong said. “We’ve got a location on Sam.”
“Where?”
“She’s at Hotel LeBlonde in a small town called Vesoul, south of Lyon. You’d better hurry. Grey has the address and he’s on his way. Get there as quick as you can, but make sure no one sees you. There are eyes in the sky.”
“Roger that,” Noble said. Armstrong heard a car engine rev before the line went dead. The kid certainly didn’t waste any time. Or words, for that matter. Armstrong wanted to know more about his run-in with Le Milieu, but that would have to wait. She pocketed the burner, kicked off her shoes, and dialed Duc for an update on the pilots.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sam was slumped in the chair by the window with her feet propped on the corner of the bed. The empty pizza box lay on the floor drawing flies. There was a steady drip-drip-drip from the bathroom faucet and the couple next door had a screaming match in the middle of the night that lasted over an hour. Sam had wanted to knock on their door and tell them to keep it down, but didn’t dare risk showing her face.
Duval lay curled up on the bed with his back to her. Every few minutes he would jerk and his hands would go up, fending off invisible attackers. He had gotten up twice to use the toilet. Blonde hair stuck out from his head at crazy angles and made him look like a mad scientist.
Neither of them were getting much in the way of actual sleep. Sam’s thoughts would drift to the life she had given up and she would find herself choking back tears. Talking to God was the only way to stop the waterworks. Prayer helped calm her down. When she finally got her emotions under control, she would start thinking about her next move. Odds of making it to Montenegro unmolested had plummeted. Even if they made it, what then? Sam would spend the rest of her life as a fugitive. That would start her on another sobbing fit and the whole vicious cycle would start over.
Duval heaved himself into a sitting position, sighed and said, “I haven’t slept a wink.”
Sam grunted in agreement.
He plodded into the bathroom and shut the door. The toilet seat went up. Sam heard a broken stream. Could be stress, she thought, or it might be time for a prostate exam. No sense mentioning it though; it would only add to his worries.
A quick peek between the curtains showed the first rays of sunlight painting leaden clouds vibrant shades of red and orange. Sam was about to close the drapes when a police cruiser glided past the window. Fear drove the fog from her brain. She drew air in through clenched teeth and sat up. The radio car reached the end of the block and turned the corner.
A police unit on patrol? thought Sam. Or are they watching the hotel? She raked a hand through her hair in an effort to get her brain working.
The toilet flushed and Duval came out of the bathroom. He yawned without bothering to cover his mouth and then saw Sam. Fear seeped into his waxy face. “What is it?”
“I think they found us,” Sam told him. “Put your shoes on.”
Duval stuffed his feet into his t
rainers and started on the laces.
Sam chewed her bottom lip and went back to watching the street. She wished bitterly that she had never tipped to Bonner’s plans. She could have gone on with her life in blissful ignorance. It was a horrible, selfish thought. Duval would be dead by now. But I would be alive and free, Sam told herself.
In the street below the window, the same police cruiser sailed silently past the hotel. Sam’s stomach clenched. Her face tightened.
“Police?” Duval asked. His voice was strangely calm, like he had been waiting for this moment to arrive.
“Yeah.”
He let out a trembling breath. “Maybe we should give ourselves up? I’m a French citizen. We could ask for asylum.”
Sam shook her head. “The French want you as bad as we do.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“He seems to be circling the block. We’ll wait for him to pass by again and then go straight out the front and cut through the park,” Sam said. She was already on her feet, moving toward the door. “Don’t look around and keep your eyes forward.”
Duval nodded and fell in behind her.
She grabbed the pageboy cap off his head and stuffed it on her own. Duval started to protest and she said, “They’re looking for me, remember?”
The second-floor hallway was empty. Sam lead the way to the stairs. It was an effort to keep her legs from running. Her brain urged her to sprint. She forced herself to walk quickly instead. Move too fast and you make mistakes. Don’t move faster than you can analyze the situation. That had been one of Burke’s nuggets of wisdom.
The same tired-eyed clerk sat behind the desk. He glanced up when Sam reached the bottom of the steps and his face paled. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just watched her like she might sprout an extra eye in the middle of her forehead.
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