Jeffery Deaver - Edge

“Roger.”

“We’ll go next and cover your retreat to the lot,” I said to Garcia.

Her pretty jaw trembling, Maree looked like she was going to cry. The flippancy was gone completely. In many ways she was a child in a woman’s body.

“I’ll start the SUV remotely. Jump in and get your belts on. Okay. Now.”

Garcia and Maree moved slowly along the sidewalk as I crouched in the doorway, looking for threats. I saw no obvious ones.

My phone buzzed.

“Freddy.”

“Just for the record, he tried the same thing-false alarms. Prince William’s had ten assault-in-progress calls. Just like you guessed.”

I hadn’t guessed. I was learning Loving’s strategy.

“But our guys are en route. Make it fifteen minutes now.”

“We’re leaving. He found out about us forty-five minutes ago. He’s got to be close by now. I can’t talk.” I disconnected.

Garcia and Maree were behind a pillar, the agent scanning those black, leering windows looking down on us. The rooftops too.

Ahmad went next with grim-faced Joanne, again clutching her purse to her chest and wheeling her suitcase. They hurried past Garcia and turned left down the alley to the parking lot.

I got a sign from Garcia.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Ryan.

I started one of the longest walks of my life.

I was close to Ryan and knew that Loving wouldn’t risk killing him to take me out, despite the partner’s skill as a sniper, but they might have sprayed our legs and kept Garcia and Ahmad pinned down while they dragged Ryan away.

But we joined Garcia without incident and, as I covered the troubling windows, he and Maree slipped to the back lot. When they’d made it, Ryan and I moved out. My pistol in one hand, the key fob in the other, I pressed the start button for the Yukon. I hadn’t expected an explosion but I still felt relieved when there wasn’t one. We hurried forward and scrambled inside the vehicle, belting up and locking the doors.

No incoming shots, no diversions-screams or collisions-to take our attention.

In ten seconds I was out of the space fast and we were heading around the back of the wing on the right of the motel, the way we’d come in. I eased to the front and merged onto the main driveway, which led to the highway via a hundred yards of winding asphalt. I was trying to narrow down the time calculation to gauge how likely it was that Loving was close.

I was angry with myself. Most shepherds used the two-part transport to get their principals to the ultimate safe house. It makes sense-to organize your escape, to make sure nobody’s following, to change vehicles. I reflected that my strategy, however, had backfired; it was because of going to a public facility that Loving had a lead to us. If I’d driven right to our safe house, we’d be home free.

Just as I often pretend to be a lifter, to anticipate their moves, I wondered if Loving had stepped into my shoes, compiling names of hotels that’d make good halfway houses. Maybe he had the same list we did.

But so far, so good. We were in an armored SUV and my principals were unhurt. No sign of Loving. Most likely it had taken him longer than I’d thought to get here.

Rolling farther along the drive…

I could see the highway eighty yards away, then sixty, fifty.

Oh, how I wanted to be on that road. The Hillside Inn was a great place to be invisible and the suite we’d taken was good for defense. But here in front of the building were hedgerows and trees for cover and ponds to limit escape routes and a very serpentine drive-picturesque but hard to see in the dusk without headlights.

It was, in short, a great spot for an ambush.

Forty yards from the road.

I rolled fast over a speed bump.

Thirty yards.

Ahead, the driveway cut through a thick hedge, eight feet high, which separated the highway from the grounds. I saw a Nissan van waiting to make a left turn into the motel grounds from the far lane. The driver was a woman and I could see a child belted in beside her. Not a threat.

But then I hit the brakes.

“What?” Ryan asked.

“Why isn’t she turning?” I asked no one.

The woman had been waiting too long for oncoming traffic to pass before she made her left turn into the inn’s drive. I could see in her windshield the flash of an oncoming car’s turn signal. That driver, making a right turn into the inn would have the right of way.

But he wasn’t turning.

Then I saw the vague form of a man settling into the thick boxwood. Something in his hand. A weapon? That’s why Loving was pausing on the road-somehow he’d spotted us leaving the back of the motel and he’d told his partner to climb out and flank us.

Did I have time to get away before he aimed and fired?

I jammed the accelerator to the floor. But as we leapt forward, Henry Loving’s black Dodge Avenger skidded to a stop before us, blocking the drive.

I hit the brake pedal. We faced each other.

An endless moment, silence in the car, silence outside. Then the partner, hidden somewhere in the bushes, opened fire, as the tires on Loving’s car squealed to smoke and he sped directly toward us.

I SLAMMED THE shifter into reverse; a three-point turn would have taken too much time. I shoved the pedal to the floor.

I heard a jarring bang from the side of our vehicle as the partner continued to fire on us from the bushes. But I’d moved just as he was pulling the trigger and the slug hit the sheetmetal, not tires. Which was good; run-flats are impressive but they’re not indestructible.

Another slam of a bullet on the body steel. The sound was very loud. Unlike in the movies, you never hear whining ricochets and you never see sparks. A bullet is a piece of lead that’s moving about three thousand feet a second. You hear a big, big bang when it hits your car and it usually stays where it’s sent and doesn’t bounce around the neighborhood.

“Covering fire,” I ordered. “Keep the partner down. But visible hostiles or neutral targets only. Do not shoot blind. Everybody else, stay down.”

Ryan was in the far back-there were three rows of seats in the car-and Garcia and the women in the seats just behind me.

“Garcia, muzzle flash to your left!”

“Got it.” He rolled down the window a few inches and began firing judiciously. Regulations prohibit us from discharging a weapon unless we have a clear target and there could possibly be bystanders nearby. Garcia shot toward where the partner had stationed himself in a thick stand of bush but was aiming only at a tree or the ground, to keep the partner down while making sure no innocents were hit.

Loving’s car was pursuing us and, still driving in reverse, I called to Ahmad, next to me, to target him. But it was particularly difficult to do so because of the curvature of the driveway lined with trees. I had to swerve wildly, depriving my colleague of a clear shot.

Another slug from the partner’s gun impacted the Yukon’s side. Maree barked a brief scream, her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. Ryan was trying to open the rear window-which was sealed shut. His revolver was in his hand but at least his finger was outside the trigger guard.

In four-wheel drive, the Yukon bounded backward, churning up a nice cloud of dust.

My head spun around briefly, glancing behind us through the front windshield. I saw Loving’s car coming after us fast, veering to avoid Ahmad’s rounds. I turned back again to look out the rear window, in the direction we were speeding.

Ahmad called, “Loving’s slowing.” His voice was calm.

“Garcia, take your shot.”

The FBI agent leaned over Joanne, who looked numb with fear, her purse clutched to her chest. He eased out the window. “The trees,” Garcia called. “I don’t have a clear shot.”