Cliff Ryder - The Finish Line

"Damn it, David, don't you flicking die on me now!"

Maggie tried to divide her attention between staying on the road and checking the agent, or whatever he was, to make sure he was still breathing. She placed a hand on his chest and was relieved to find he was still alive. "Oh, thank God." Alarmed horns alerted her to her drifting car, and Maggie quickly straightened up before she sideswiped somebody.

With that minicrisis over, she concentrated on where they were, and more importantly, where they were going. She found a broad avenue and turned left onto it.

A chirping noise filled the car, and Maggie nearly strained her neck, whipping her head around to see where it was coming from. After a startled few seconds, she realized David's cell phone was trilling.

"Crap, what now?" She pulled over and, holding her breath, she removed the phone from the ignition, amazed to find that the car still kept running. She stabbed the green connect button, holding the phone to her ear gingerly, as if it might attack her at any second, as she pulled back onto the road.

"Hello?" said a clear, calm, female voice on the other end.

"Hello." Maggie's response was automatic, but she didn't say anything more.

"May I ask who this is?"

"No, you may not. In fact, I'd rather you told me who the hell you are first."

"I'm a friend of the man in the car next to you. You might say I'm his boss," the voice said.

Maggie grimaced. Wonderful, more double-talk bullshit. Without realizing it, her speed began creeping up as she tried to escape the city faster. "Great, but that doesn't really answer my question. Who are you affiliated with?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you."

Maggie jerked the phone away from her ear and rubbed the mouthpiece on the seat belt. "Hmm, the connection's breaking up here. Now, stop jerking me around. Who do you work for?"

"We're an independent organization, if that's what you're wondering."

Son of a bitch! Is this guy with another mercenary group? she wondered, alarmed. "And if I said the name Mercury Security, your response would be?"

"We are not a private security organization, if that is your concern."

"That's just one of my concerns at the moment."

"I'm sure it is. May I speak to the owner of this phone, please?"

Interesting how she never says his name, Maggie thought, shooting her unconscious passenger a sidelong glance. "I'm afraid he can't come to the phone right now — in fact, I gotta go, too."

"Miss, wait, is he hurt? Please, don't hang up, we can help you…" was all she heard before Maggie clicked off the phone. She held the sleek unit in her palm for a moment as she wondered what to do. What else does this thing do, I wonder? Can it track us? If she hadn't had both hands occupied, she would have smacked her forehead. Shit, of course they can triangulate on our position. Hell, if this guy's with the government — no matter what she said — I gotta ditch this thing.

At the next intersection, Maggie pulled up to a truck with an open-topped flatbed filled with broken concrete. She held the phone for another moment, then lowered the window and tossed the chirping device up into the back of the truck, which was turning left onto another boulevard.

Okay, what to do, what to do? At the next light, she wrestled her laptop out of its case and inserted her mobile satellite Internet card. Her encrypted connection would pop up on the Web for a few minutes, but since she was moving, she felt it was worth the risk. Besides, I need help right fucking now.

Logging on, she placed a scrambled VOIP call to a number known only by a handful of people in the world, inserting her wireless earpiece into her ear while she waited. Next to her, David moaned and stirred restlessly in his seat. A fine sheen of sweat gleamed on his forehead. And this is just what I need, as well, to haul around a wounded secret agent. As soon as the thought popped into her head, Maggie felt a bit guilty. After all, the guy had been standing between her and that other gunman when he'd gotten shot.

Come on, come on…At last, someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"G?"

"Is this who I think it is?"

"Yeah."

"Girl, what the hell happened? My guy was ready to meet you, and the next thing he knows, crazy fools are capping each other and setting off noisemakers all over the place." Even on his secure line, Aragorn was careful not to refer to guns or explosives or any actual locations. "They've pretty much shut down the trains coming or going out of there, you know."

"Good thing I'm in a car, then," Maggie said.

"Do I want to know how you acquired it?"

"Through my new friend," she said.

"The kind of friends you got, I'd hate to see your enemies."

"Yeah, ask your buddy — he probably saw them up close and personal before the fireworks started."

"He did mention something about that."

"Well, look, since I was unavoidably diverted from making my connection, I still need the hookup."

Maggie heard a long, drawn-out hiss of breath in her ear. "Should I assume that what happened today involved you?"

Maggie thought about lying for a second, but discarded the idea. She needed Aragorn more than ever, and if he found out she'd lied to him, he'd disappear like smoke in the wind — or worse, hang her out to dry. Besides, he probably had a voice-stress analyzer monitoring the call anyway. "Yes," she said.

Aragorn murmured in disapproval. "Heat like that I do not need, you know."

"I know, I know. I wouldn't ask if I didn't need the help — you also know that."

"Maybe so, but I think you need to level with me, so I know what the hell I might be getting myself into."

"The shit I got myself into involves men who would do the kind of stuff that went down today. They're the kind of men who would wax my brother without even thinking twice. That's the kind of shit I'm in, and I need help — your help — to get out of it, all right?" Maggie's eyes gleamed with tears as she spoke about her brother, but her voice was as cold and clear as ever. I'll be damned if I give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry — or beg for that matter.

There was a long pause again, and Maggie was sure Aragorn was just playing with her. He'd always liked to pull juvenile shit like that.

"All right, but I'm gonna need another ten percent. No negotiating this time. I've already laid out expenses on this, and now I gotta set up another net for you on short notice. Where are you right now?" he finally said.

In her haste to get out of the city, Maggie hadn't paid any attention to where she was going, and now looked up in surprise as a jumbo jet airliner roared over the avenue she was on, crossing her vision from west to east. She waited for the ringing in her ears to die down. "I'm near an airport, if you hadn't guessed."

"Do you know what direction you're heading?" he asked.

Maggie scanned the dashboard for any help, and found a digital compass to her right. "Yeah, north-northeast."

"Good, I can work with this. Keep going on this road until you're out of town, then follow the directions I'm sending you. Call me once you get to the outskirts, and we'll go from there. Drive safe, and for God's sake don't get pulled over."

"No shit. Hey — thanks."

"Thank me only once we get you safely tucked away. Now hang up and concentrate — you've got a ways to go."

"I'll see you soon."

"Not if I see you first." Aragorn clicked off, and Maggie disconnected her call just as a chime from her computer announced an e-mail had arrived. Opening it revealed a map and the quickest route to Brussels, Belgium. Settling into the seat, she glanced over at David, still breathing shallowly, and focused all of her concentration on quietly getting them out of France without any more bullets whizzing by, explosions going off or cold-eyed, brown-haired men coming after them — apart from the one in the seat next to her.