Lee Child - MatchUp

“All right. All right.”

As Demidov bound his legs together with the duct tape, Simon removed the phone from his pocket. After activating the video camera, he focused on the blood-smeared face.

“What time is it?” Simon demanded.

“Time? Why the hell does that matter?”

“Believe me, it does.” He aimed the pistol and the camera. “Tell your sister what time it is, or I’ll use this pipe to break your knees.”

“When this is over—” Demidov glared at his watch, telling the camera, “Twelve twenty-eight. Marta, I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s batshit crazy. You’ve really screwed up this time.”

“Marta? Thanks for telling me her name.”

Simon ended the video and sent it.

“Now what?”

“Roll onto your stomach.” He jabbed Demidov with the pipe. “Put your wrists behind your back.”

No sooner did he finish taping the guy’s arms behind him than the phone buzzed.

“Hi, Marta,” he said, mimicking the tone of an old friend. “The good news is that no matter how bad your brother looks, a minute ago he was still alive.”

“You’ll never see your fiancée again unless you release him.”

Marta’s voice sounded worried.

“I always assumed you’d kill her, so I’m not losing anything.” He climbed into the car. “The thing is, that works the other way around too. You’ll never see your brother again, unless you release my fiancée. So from this point on, I suggest you treat Liz gently. Because I swear to you, Marta, whatever you do to her, I’ll do to your brother.”

He pushed a button on a garage-door opener attached to the car’s sun visor. The door rumbled open and gray daylight filled the garage.

“I’m moving the timetable up,” he told her. “Five p.m. That’s the new deadline for the exchange.” He backed the car out of the garage and drove off along the quiet street. “At the Lincoln Memorial. Lots of witnesses if you try something stupid.”

“I’ll need more time than that.”

“While you track me? Using the GPS on the phone you gave me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hang on a second.” Simon stopped the car across from a small park where city workers were gathering trash bags. He accessed the call history of the phone he’d been given and memorized the number it was linked to. Then he called that number, but this time he used his own phone. “Marta, that buzz you hear is me. It’s coming from my personal phone. Answer it.”

She sounded confused, but did as he instructed.

He resumed driving, came abreast of the city’s open-backed truck, and tossed her phone among the garbage bags.

“I’m untethered, Marta,” he said into his own phone. “Five o’clock. The Lincoln Memorial. Don’t forget. Anything you do to Liz, I’ll do to your brother.”

IN THE BACK OFFICE OF a dry cleaner’s shop in McLean, Virginia, a tall woman with long blond hair, intense blue eyes, and strong Slavic features pressed the End button on her phone. She was in her midthirties and might have been considered a beauty if not for the cruelty around her mouth. She stared at a monitor where a pulsing green dot in Tysons Corner no longer moved. In the front of the shop, steam presses hissed and machines rumbled, but she barely heard them or registered the chemical smell that permeated the office.

Her brother had laughed at her when she’d suggested buying the business and using it as one of their fronts.

“What’s so funny?” she’d asked.

“Don’t you get it? Dry cleaning. That’s what needs to happen to all the cash we bring in from the drugs and the gambling and the whores. We should buy a couple of laundries also. Just don’t screw this up like you did when you bought those restaurants that gave people food poisoning.”

Marta kept staring at the pulsing dot.

She heard the voices of what seemed to be workmen talking about the unusual amount of trash they’d picked up in a park. Obviously Simon Childs had thrown away the phone he’d been given and was now using his own.

Could she trust him not to have police and FBI agents positioned near the Memorial?

Hardly.

“Let’s see how much you love your fiancée,” she muttered.

She pressed the button for the phone at the hunting lodge.

MAX OPENED THE DOOR.

“Rudy, what were you shouting about?”

He tensed when he saw the streaks of blood across the floor and then Rudy’s body slumped next to the Nautilus machine.

He drew his pistol and spun to make sure he wasn’t threatened, then rushed to his cousin. Rudy lay on his side, his crimson throat gaping. He couldn’t possibly be alive, but Max felt for a pulse anyhow, shaking Rudy gently, hoping there was something he could do. But no one could have survived such a deep gash to the throat.

He spun and quickly checked the bunker.

Liz Sansborough wasn’t there.

He raced past the monitors toward the stairs and charged upward. There was a chance she was hiding at the top, ready to slash at him.

Rather than approach cautiously, he rushed through the opening. But she wasn’t there, and he kept running across the lodge’s community room toward the open front door. Behind him, below in the bunker, he heard a phone ring, but he didn’t dare stop to answer it.

The bitch was only thirty seconds ahead of him.

The outside air was gray and cool.

Mist encircled him.

Behind him, faintly, the phone kept ringing.

He heard something else, though.

Past the van.

Footsteps running across gravel.

LIZ PLUNGED INTO THE MISTY forest.

The weather had softened the autumn leaves, but they still made noise, and thinking quickly, she veered toward the soft duff of pine needles, leaping over patches of leaves as she came to them.

Sensation was returning to her fingers. She used the knife to cut off the plastic cuffs, wincing as the tip dug into the skin under them. Then she pulled out the iPhone she’d stolen. She needed to use its GPS to determine her location and text Simon. She prayed he was all right. As she touched the icon activating the map, she lifted her head, listening. Feet were crunching quickly through the leaves behind her. It had to be Max, and he’d be armed with his pistol, while all she had was the knife.

No time to text.

“Liz Sansborough, where are you?” Max’s voice boomed. “You’re dead. Do you hear me? Dead.”

Shoving the iPhone back into her pocket, she spotted a rotting log ahead. Now she wanted Max to hear her, so she ran hard, pounding through twigs and leaves. Then she yelled, “Stay away from me, Max.”

To the right, a steep slope descended into the mist. At the log she dropped onto her back, braced her feet against it, and used the strength in her legs to push. The sound of the log rolling over the slope was at first hushed in the mist, but then it hit a rock and bounced off an unseen tree, the noise exploding as it crashed down into brush.

“I’m coming to get you,” Max shouted.

She moved swiftly away in the opposite direction, into the trees again, leaping silently from one bed of pine needles to the next. She could hear him pounding down the slope, grunting and swearing and calling her name. Pauses told her he must have slid or fallen.

She smiled.

Hurrying as quietly as she could, she rounded an enormous boulder and saw the stream. It was about five feet wide and clear as glass. Desperately thirsty, she fell to her knees on the mossy bank. Cupping her hands, she scooped up water and drank. Then she splashed her face, the cold water, though stinging, like a tonic to her bruises and cuts. Wiping her hands on her jogging jacket, she took out the iPhone and touched the map icon again. No response. She frowned, checked the charge, saw it was good, and realized she had no reception. No surprise. She was out in the middle of nowhere. She had to get back to the cabin where there was wireless.