Lee Child - MatchUp

The forest was starting to come awake from the shock of human intruders. Unseen animals skittered through the underbrush. Birds complained in the treetops. The stream sounded extraloud. She’d heard it when she’d first arrived at the log cabin and realized it could lead her back there.

Abruptly, she heard Max searching for her, coming closer. Even in the mist, the yellow of her jogging suit would be obvious. The Rambo movies that Max and Rudy had talked about flashed through her mind, reminding her of the way the character always blended with the forest. Grabbing handfuls of mud, she smeared them over her face and her jogging suit. Soon her clothing was a monotonous brown.

She yanked the hood up and tied it under her chin, hiding her red hair.

Feeling the pressure of time, she ran along the moss and sand that edged the stream. She listened for Max, but he’d become silent once more.

That made her nervous.

With luck, he’d slipped and fallen, perhaps hitting his head on a rock on his way down into the hollow where he thought she’d run. If her luck were really good, the bastard was dead.

But she wouldn’t count on it.

Creeping through the mist, she reached a stand of beeches.

She slowed and crouched. Listened. Watched.

Then took out the iPhone and studied the screen.

Finally, reception.

MARTA LISTENED AS THE LODGE’S phone rang and rang.

She didn’t understand why no one was answering. Had she used the wrong number?

She pressed End.

Again, she called the number for the lodge, this time double-checking that she hadn’t made a mistake.

One of several errors.

Nick would be furious.

It was her fault that he’d been arrested. He should never have been at the warehouse where the stolen prescription painkillers were delivered. She’d neglected to arrange for a go-between to pick up the money they were promised—so huge an amount that Nick himself had driven impatiently to the warehouse to retrieve it, only to be grabbed by the FBI.

And that wasn’t the only screwup he would blame her for.

If she couldn’t make this right, she didn’t want to be around when he got out of prison.

After the twentieth time the lodge’s phone rang, she impatiently broke the transmission and called Rudy instead of the lodge.

FEELING A SURGE OF HOPE, Liz touched the screen’s map icon and saw a green dot that revealed her location in the middle of a large, unmarked rural area. She expanded the image and discovered an orange line indicating a road, along with a number for Highway 55. She expanded the image even more, revealing the name of a town—Marsdon—southwest of her.

Her fingers trembling, she started to type a text message and let Simon know where she was. But all she managed was ESCAPED. OFF H55 N. Music suddenly blared from the cell phone.

Damn.

It sounded like the theme from the damned Rambo movies. The trumpets startled her so much that she nearly dropped the phone, touching the Send button before she intended to. As the rousing anthem reverberated through the mist, she flipped at the mute switch.

The sudden silence unnerved her.

Every animal in the forest seemed to have become paralyzed. Birds no longer complained in the trees.

Max didn’t make a sound either.

No way he couldn’t have heard the music.

RUBBING HIS SIDE FROM WHERE he’d tumbled down a slope, Max stalked through the forest.

Abruptly he heard music. Trumpets.

Rambo music.

Then he realized it was the ringtone on Rudy’s phone. To the left. For a fierce moment Max almost charged toward it, but at once the trumpets ended, their echo subsiding into the mist.

He found an unexpected stillness inside him.

What would the big guy do?

Would he charge ahead?

No damned way.

The scum he’d hunted never knew where he was.

Rambo just struck out of nowhere and . . .

Listening for any sound that Sansborough might make, he changed his phone to mute.

Then he texted Marta.

BITCH ESCAPED. RUDY’S DEAD. HUNTING HER.

After studying the ground ahead of him, he stepped onto soft pine needles—exactly what Rambo would do—and moved silently toward where the music had come from.

MARTA GAPED AT THE MESSAGE.

BITCH ESCAPED.

Without the woman, she had no way to rescue Nick. No way to prove that she could make up for her mistakes. No way to keep from being the target of Nick’s fury. She desperately needed help, but the rest of the gang was in Texas, working on two hijack jobs that she hoped the police would blame on a rival gang—an idea that she hadn’t told Nick about and for which he would surely now punish her.

She pulled a .40-caliber Sig Sauer from a drawer, made sure that its twelve-round magazine was fully loaded and that a round was in the firing chamber. She scooped an extra magazine from the drawer, shoved it and the pistol into her purse, and hurried from the office.

IN THE DARKNESS OF THE trunk, Nick struggled to breathe as shallowly as possible. The stench of the spare tire and oily rags made him sick. He thought he smelled the bitterness of engine exhaust also, but if that were true, surely he’d be dead by now. His arms ached from the tight angle at which his wrists were duct-taped behind him, but no matter how much he squirmed, he couldn’t loosen the tape.

Sweat streaked his forehead.

A bump sent a jolt of pain through the swelling gashes on his face. He was as furious about the damage to his handsome features as he was about anything else that the bastard driving the car had done to him. But he was even more furious because Marta’s carelessness had gotten him into this mess.

Your sister’s waiting for you, the man had said.

And she’ll be sorry, he vowed.

IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT SIMON blended with the rush of vehicles on the Beltway. Back at the safe house, the FBI agent had said that he wasn’t due to be relieved until nine tonight. So the police had no idea what happened and wouldn’t be looking for the car.

In theory.

He tried to figure the best way to arrange the exchange and get Liz back. As he visualized vantage points around the Lincoln Memorial, he heard the ping of a text message coming through. He snatched up his phone from the seat next to him.

What he saw made him inhale sharply.

ESCAPED. OFF H55 N.

From a sender named Rudy Voya.

Who the hell is that? And where’s the rest of the message? The name’s Russian. Did Liz really escape, or was Marta playing with him? Trying to draw him and her brother away from Washington?

Knowing that H55 was the scenic highway west of Washington, he made an abrupt decision and took the first exit that allowed him to speed in that direction.

LIZ CONTINUED ALONG THE SOFT bank of the stream.

The trickle of the water hid the few sounds she made, but it also hid any sounds from Max. With trembling fingers, she typed the rest of her message to Simon.

NE OF MARSDON. A LODGE.

The moment she sent it, she tightened her grip on the knife and struggled to get control of herself. So far, she’d merely been fleeing. But she remembered what her CIA instructors had taught her during training exercises at the Farm.