Pursuit

by ROBARDS, KAREN

The truck slowed slightly as it bounced around a downward sloping curve, and with a quick glance out the opening Jess realized they were on an access ramp.

  “I can do it,” she said.

  He looked surprised. “For real?”

  “I checked phone records for Mr. Davenport all the time. All I need is a computer.”

  Mark gave her a slow-dawning grin. “Baby, where ’ve you been all my life?”

  Before she could reply—the truthful answer was “For the last few months, I’ve been right under your nose”—their attention was distracted by the truck coming to a shuddering stop. Another glance out through the tarpaulin’s opening confirmed that they were at the bottom of a ramp, presumably waiting at a traffic light.

  “First thing we ’ve got to do is get off this truck,” Mark said as the truck started moving again, clattering through the intersection and picking up speed. “Sooner or later the driver’s going to stop for real. Or someone is going to spot us.”

  Jess nodded.

  They were in a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood, she saw as the truck stopped again, hopefully one with a number of stop signs. They probably wouldn’t get a better opportunity. Apparently, Mark thought so as well, because he thrust her purse at her.

  “I’m going to crawl to the back.” He was holding her shoes, presumably intending to carry them himself. “You follow me. Next time the truck stops, we jump.”

  “What happens if the driver sees us?”

  “That’s a chance we’ll just have to take. What’s he going to do, call the police? By the time they get here we’ll be long gone.”

  He extracted himself from under the tarpaulin and crept to the tailgate, crouching there at the corner, staying low, looking back at her. Jess realized that she could see him quite clearly even as she forced her increasingly stiff legs to work, and she crawled laboriously to join him. Dawn was breaking in earnest. Bright bands of pink and gold streaked the eastern sky, and the rising sun limned the roofs of the two- and three-story brick buildings, surrounding them with a shimmering gold. The air was crisp and cold, particularly after the stifling warmth under the tarpaulin. A quick glance around as she reached Mark told her that they were driving through a block of small restaurants and shops, none of which were open yet, as far as she could tell. The sidewalks were, thankfully, deserted. Even as she swept a nervous look around, the truck slowed again. Mark jumped off while it was still moving, then reached up for her as it shuddered to a halt, grabbed her under the armpits and lifted her down at the corner, where it was possible to avoid the tailgate.

  Her knees were shaky and the concrete was cold as ice, but with his arm hard around her waist they made it onto the sidewalk. A wary glance back at the truck found the driver, a man in a baseball cap, still looking forward as he got under way again, pulling on through the intersection. If he had any idea he had been carrying stowaways, he gave no indication of it.

  “I don’t think he saw us,” Jess said.

  “Just in case, we’re out of here.”

  Mark kept his arm around her as they hurried along the sidewalk before ducking into an alley.

  “I need my shoes,” Jess reminded him once they were out of sight of the street. Her poor bare feet were freezing.

  “Oh, yeah.” Stopping, he handed them to her, waiting while she slid her feet into them. Glancing up once she had her shoes on, she saw that he was looking at them with disfavor.

  “When I decided to wear heels, I didn’t know I was going to be running for my life,” she said defensively.

  He snorted. “I’m surprised you can even walk in those things.”

  “My legs are a little unsteady,” she admitted. Which was an understatement. They felt stiff and unwieldy and her knees were weak and her lower back throbbed.

  “I’m not surprised.” His eyes met hers. The smallest of smiles touched his mouth. “I can always carry you again.”

  “Not necessary. Come on, let ’s go.” She started walking. She could feel him watching her critically.

  “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  Catching up, he offered her his arm for support in a gesture that would have been almost courtly under different circumstances. Jess slid her hand into the crook of his elbow, grateful for the support. Leaning against him, moving carefully as she tried to work some of the stiffness out of her legs, she realized something: She would be perfectly happy to snuggle up against his side for the rest of her life.

  I’m in love with him. The thought wasn’t a joyous one. Rather it filled her with dismay. Think it hurt when he didn’t remember you in Mrs. Cooper’s office? Wait till this is over and he gives you a chuck under the chin and walks away.

  Of course, that cheerful image was predicated on the idea that one day this would be over, that the two of them would come through it and survive, which was looking iffy at best. Reminded of how much danger they were in, Jess pushed the awful truth about her feelings for Mark to the back of her mind. Before it became a problem that she had to deal with, they had to get out of this alive.

  “They have public-access computers at the library. That’s where we need to go,” she said. Jess spared a quick, longing thought for her own laptop, which would be waiting on the desk in her living room right where she had left it. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to go home to her apartment, which, she guessed, was not an option.

  “Later. The first thing we want to do is get out of this area as fast as we can.” Mark cast a quick, assessing glance back over his shoulder, and Jess felt a corresponding nervous chill.

  “We weren’t followed”—she was almost sure—“so how could they know where we are?”

  “By now they’ve probably realized they missed us at the 7-Eleven. Sooner or later, I’m guessing they’ll either remember the truck or check the store’s security cameras and find it and have a eureka moment. There ’s lots of ways they can trace it, from something simple like running the tag and going to talk to the owner to zeroing in on the route it took this morning with satellite imagery.”

  “Satellite imagery?” Jess felt sick.

  “Baby, we’ve got eyes in the sky that can spot a mosquito on the roof of a building. Whoever this is, you can bet they have access. The problem is knowing where to look. And in the District, there are a lot of people to look at.”

  They reached the end of the alley and emerged onto 2nd Street, according to the sign. She was vaguely familiar with the area, which was a mix of fifties-era boxy concrete rectangles and older restored brick buildings. It was home to a plethora of federal agencies, including the FAA, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services. None of them were open to tourists, and, more important, none of them were open this early. Up the street, there was an old woman walking a dog. Just beyond her, a homeless man pushed his belongings in a shopping cart. The rattling of the wheels on the uneven pavement jangled Jess’s nerves. Other than that, this street, too, was deserted.

  So much for his assertion that because there were lots of people in D.C., finding them would be harder. There weren’t lots of people here. And the idea that a satellite might be recording their every move right at that very moment gave her the willies.

  Jess’s toe caught on something and she stumbled.

  “You okay?” Mark stopped to steady her. Regaining her balance, she nodded, and he added, “I vote we head for the metro and put some distance between us and where we got off the truck as quick as we can.”

  “Just a minute,” she said. Mark was scruffy, but then he looked hot scruffy. She had a strong feeling that she was scruffy, too, and she knew from experience that she definitely did not look hot that way. Unzipping her purse, she dug into it even as she spoke. “It would be better if we looked as normal as possible. Let me brush my hair.”

  “Now?” He looked at her with disbelief, but she was already dragging a brush through her hair. Finishing, she ran her brush over his.

  “Hey.”


  “Your hair was sticking up.”

  “Nobody’s going to notice me.”

  “They might.”

  “If people are gonna be looking at us that close, you probably ought to know that you have dirt on your face.”

  “Really?”

  “I was kidding.” He groaned as she dug through her purse for the wet wipes she carried and carefully wiped her face. Then she pulled out a tube of the neutral pink lipstick she always wore and slicked that over her lips. Since she never wore much makeup anyway, Jess calculated that she now probably looked pretty close to normal. Except for the bruises and stitches, of course.

  “You all done?” he asked.

  Jess ignored the too polite tone. “Yes.”

  “Good.” Taking her arm, Mark started walking, and she, perforce, went with him. “Look, I know this area. There ’s a metro station two blocks over. It would be nice if we could get there before the people who want to kill us catch up.”

  The reminder made her shiver. A few minutes later Jess spotted the brown pole with the M sign on it that indicated a metro station. So close to the metro there were numerous people around. Nervously her gaze slid over a couple of college-age men in hoodies and jeans wearing backpacks, a blond middle-aged woman in the kind of bright polyester uniform that a dental assistant or pediatrician’s assistant might wear, an older guy in a suit carrying a briefcase, a woman about her own age in a Denny’s uniform. All were hurrying toward the metro. None spared so much as a glance for her or Mark. None looked like a threat.

  Mark stopped dead. Glancing at him in surprise, she discovered that he was staring at the intersection directly ahead of them as if he’d seen a ghost. A red light was holding up cross traffic, while a taxi sped through to zoom past them with a rattle and a whoosh of air.

  “What?” she demanded. His expression was enough to make her stomach tighten without his even having to say a word.

  “See that black BMW?” His voice was very quiet. His hand tightened on her arm, and he started walking again, urging her toward the metro station. His eyes were on the intersection that was maybe a quarter of a block away.

  Following his gaze, she saw that there were three vehicles lined up waiting for the light to change: a red Honda or something similar, a white Econoline van with some sort of writing on the side, and the black BMW. Shiny and new-looking, it had tinted windows and bright chrome wheels.

  “What about it?” she asked, as the light changed and those vehicles got under way in turn, crossing in front of them.

  “It was at the 7-Eleven.” They were almost at the steps that led down to the station. “I think it’s a Dark Car.”

  24

  A Dark Car? You want to tell me what that is?”

  The answer was going to be bad news, Jess knew as she asked the question. She could tell from the rigidity of his jaw, the tightness of his mouth, and the sudden deepening of the lines around his eyes as he shot a look at her. She swallowed hard. Her heart, which was already beating too fast, began to race.

  “It ’s a special-ops vehicle.”

  Jess hesitated at the top of the long flight of concrete steps that led to the metro platform, glancing down them with dismay. Making a sound under his breath, Mark scooped her up and started down with her. Jess grabbed his shoulders and hung on. The truth was, the stairs were a problem for her for the moment, and they both knew it.

  “They always use black, foreign-made cars. The tags, registration, all that will turn out to be attached to some sham company. Untraceable.”

  “Does it belong to the Secret Service? The CIA? What?” It was all Jess could do to keep the squeak out of her voice. They were on the platform now, and he set her on her feet. While not crowded, it was fairly well populated even as early as it was. Her gaze shot around, looking for—what? Men in dark suits? If so, there were a few, but none who looked threatening. Jeez, was she making a possibly fatal mistake by assuming that all government operatives wore dark suits and were as big and buff as Mark? But he was scanning the crowd, too, and didn’t appear to find any fresh cause for alarm. The ubiquitous smell of subways everywhere, the stale air and exhaust mixed with notes of body odor, urine, and alcohol, wasn’t too bad. D.C. was known for its clean stations. Jess could see that the train was already rushing toward them. The roar echoed off the concrete walls.

  “Way more off the grid than that. Black ops. We ’re basically talking government-authorized hit men.”

  “Oh my God.”

  The train pulled into the station with a wheeze. As far as Jess could tell, nobody was paying them the least bit of attention. Just to be safe, she shot a nervous glance back toward the entrance: a college-age girl bumping a bicycle down the stairs, a middle-aged woman in a red dress in a hurry to catch the train. Nobody threatening.

  “You good by yourself for a minute?” he asked.

  That caught her attention.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Right over there. Don’t move.”

  Giving the newcomers a once-over as they reached the bottom of the steps and joined the milling group of waiting riders, Mark wove through the swelling assemblage to a vending machine half a platform away. Shooting continual wary glances at the eddying tide of people around her, Jess watched as he put in a few dollars and procured two fare cards. Returning, he handed one to her.

  “I have a fare card,” she told him as she accepted the one he gave her. Most residents of D.C. did; the metro was the easiest, most economical way to move around inside the District.

  “I have one, too, and neither of us can use ours.” His expression turned flinty again. “They’re hoping we’ll do something that dumb. We can’t use credit cards, or debit cards, or anything else like that, either, without them pouncing on us. We’re strictly cash-and-carry from here on out.”

  Jess ran a fingertip along the edge of the fare card. Her stomach was now knotted so tight it actually hurt.

  “I have about twenty-four dollars in my purse.” That was including the emergency twenty, which her mother had replaced, showing the folded bill to her before tucking it into the zippered compartment.

  “Well, I have a hundred and twelve, so that gives us a kitty of . . .”

  “A hundred and thirty-six dollars.” Jess’s tone was glum. That wouldn’t last long. She faced the terrifying truth. “We can’t run forever, Mark.”

  “We don’t have to run forever. We just have to keep a step ahead of them until we come up with some way to bring them down.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Jess shot him a look. “If that was supposed to make me feel better, I should probably tell you it failed miserably.”

  He smiled.

  “Keep your head down. You’ve been on the news a lot lately.” His hand slid around her elbow, urging her into motion. “The last thing we need is somebody recognizing you.”

  A thrill of alarm shot out along her nerve endings at the thought as she obediently ducked her head. Probably because she ’d watched almost none of the coverage, she ’d forgotten she had just been all over TV in connection with Annette Cooper’s death.

  “Do you think they will?” Her shoulders rose defensively as her head sank between them. She moved closer to his side.

  “I don’t think so. The glasses are good. Every time I’ve seen you on TV, you haven’t been wearing them.”

  “That ’s because I hate them.”

  “Do you?” He sounded surprised. “You look cute in them. Brainy. Hot.”

  If she hadn’t been scared out of her mind, Jess thought she might have blushed. She flicked a quick sideways look up at him.

  “If you’re after my twenty-four dollars, you can just forget it,” she said tartly.

  He laughed. “I’m serious. Brainy and hot. The combination’s killer.”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she secretly hugged his words close as they fell in with the queue of people boarding the train. Oh, God, how idiotic was it that even while she was running for her life, just get
ting a compliment from him could make her go all warm and fuzzy inside? Unbidden, she had a sudden flashback to that blazing kiss. Mark . . .

  “Careful.” His hand tightened on her elbow as she reached the train and stepped aboard, and the necessity of quickly vetting all the people already sitting in the upholstered seats was as effective at banishing romantic yearnings as a bucket of cold water to the face.

  Forget being in love. What you want to do here is survive.

  Her legs were more unsteady than she ’d hoped, and she was relieved to find a seat. Mark dropped down beside her, eyeing the people around them before apparently deciding they were all as harmless as they looked.

  The train groaned and jerked as it got under way.

  “So what you’re telling me is that somebody’s decided your Secret Service buddies aren’t getting the job done, and now they’ve sent in the real professionals?” Jess asked under her breath. The situation was now so bad it was almost funny. Not.

  “It’s because of me.” His eyes were harder and colder than she had ever imagined they could be. His mouth was tight, his expression unreadable. She was reminded that he was a federal agent, with a gun holstered on his belt. Thank God. “Last night, or rather early this morning, whoever’s behind this apparently realized that if they killed you I wasn’t going to be fine with it, and they were going to have to deal with me. So now they’re out to eliminate us both.”

  “The bomb,” Jess said, appalled.

  “Yeah.”

  She tried to think logically despite the panic that was welling up inside her as irrepressibly as fizz in a shaken soda bottle.

  “You realize this means I’ve been right all along. Nobody would send out a government hit squad if they weren’t trying to cover up something as big as”—her voice, which had been scarcely louder than a whisper before, dropped even lower, although an anxious glance around re-confirmed that no one seemed to be paying the least bit of attention—“the First Lady’s murder.”

  “I got that.”

  “In other words, we ’re in trouble.”

  He gave a curt little nod.