Lee Child - MatchUp

If you’re on the run—in the city, in the countryside, it doesn’t matter—if you don’t have a plan, if you’re just reacting, you’re going to lose.

Following the stream had the merit of giving her a course, but when she looked again at the map feature on her phone, she found an overhead photograph of the area. The stream meandered, sometimes curving back to the middle of the forest, where Max was surely searching for her. But if she veered from the stream with no landmarks to guide her, only the phone’s GPS would keep her from wandering in the mist—and not for long. The battery-charge indicator was at twenty percent.

Soon the phone would be dead.

How long until the sun went down? Could she hope to find her way out of here by then, or would she be forced to hide in the dark?

The lodge.

Earlier, without cell-phone reception, she’d thought about heading back there until she came within Wi-Fi range and could contact Simon. But now that she’d been able to send a text, her only thought had been to put as much distance as she could between her and Max. It was counterintuitive for her to go back to the lodge. Max would never expect it. She thought about the weapons there and the communications equipment. She could lock the doors and send for help. The place looked like it had the strength of a bunker. Max and whoever came to help him wouldn’t be able to break in before the police arrived.

Ready with the knife, she turned away from the stream, stepped warily over patches of leaves, and headed toward her best chance to survive.

MAX RECALLED WHAT RAMBO HAD said in the second movie.

The best weapon’s the human mind.

Yeah, right.

The guy’s got a body like a chunk of granite and he wants to talk about his mind. But he decided the advice was good. He didn’t know the first damned thing about chasing someone through a forest the way Rambo did, with his bow and arrow and knife like fucking Tarzan. It didn’t matter. All he needed to do was be smart.

And use his phone.

He assumed that, when the outburst of Rambo music had suddenly ended, it meant that Sansborough had put Rudy’s phone on mute. Not that it mattered. He and Rudy had each installed the “find” app on their phones, adding each other to the lists. When he opened the app and told it what to look for, son of a bitch, a map appeared. A dot showed that Rudy’s phone was to his left, heading toward the lodge.

He knew what that meant.

She was trying to get to a gun.

He almost raced in that direction, but couldn’t do that without making a lot of noise and warning her.

Be smart.

He picked up a rock and hurled it high into the air, throwing it as far as he could, way beyond where he estimated Sansborough might be. The rock crashed down through mist-cloaked branches, snapping twigs, thumping onto the ground and bouncing. Its trajectory was almost straight down. He hoped it would make Sansborough unable to guess from which direction it had been thrown. He used that noise to hide any sounds that he himself made while he simultaneously moved parallel toward where Sansborough was.

That’s smarter than Rambo.

When he saw that the dot on his screen came to a stop in reaction to the noise from the rock, he grinned and hurled another in that direction, high and far. Again, he used the crashing, snapping noise to prevent her from hearing him step carefully toward the lodge.

Definitely.

Smarter than Rambo.

He tossed another rock.

With luck, he’d be waiting when she crossed the parking lot.

WHEN SIMON SAW THE HIGHWAY 55 road marker, he resisted the urge to drive faster, needing all his strength of will to continue to blend with the stream of traffic. If a policeman stopped him and wondered why he was driving a car that wasn’t registered to him, if the policeman used that excuse to search the vehicle and looked in the trunk, it would all be over.

His phone chimed.

Another text coming through.

Again he felt pressure in his chest as he looked toward the seat next to him and saw that Rudy Voya had sent a new message.

NE OF MARSDON. A LODGE.

ANOTHER ROCK CRASHED THROUGH UNSEEN branches beyond Liz, breaking twigs and crunching down onto leaves.

The echo reverberated through the mist.

The afternoon’s chill sank deeper into her, aggravated by her growing fear about whatever trick Max was planning. Obviously he was using the distraction of the rocks to hide any sounds he made. She doubted that he could have gotten ahead of her.

Which meant he was throwing rocks from behind her.

That tactic could work for her too.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket, freeing her right hand so that she could pick up a rock. She turned and threw it high in the air, imitating what Max had done. Maybe she’d get lucky and hit the bastard.

At a minimum she hoped to confuse him.

The rock struck an invisible branch and made more noise as it dropped past other branches. She used those precious seconds to risk the subtle sounds she couldn’t avoid, as she clutched the knife and crept onward.

MAX FLINCHED FROM THE CRUNCHING sound that his shoe made on the gravel of the parking area. The forest had been a vague hulking presence in what was now a misty drizzle. Now all of a sudden there weren’t any shrouded trees ahead of him. He stepped back onto soft earth and inched quietly to the right toward where his phone showed that Sansborough wasn’t far from him.

He thought he heard her moving past trees.

But maybe not.

It didn’t matter.

In a few seconds, she would step onto the gravel. The noise she made would give her away. She wouldn’t be able to recover before he lunged toward the noise and shot her.

In the face. In each breast. In the stomach.

For Rudy.

He knew that Marta would want Sansborough alive, to exchange her for Nick. But the truth was, Max didn’t like Nick. On the other hand, Rudy had been Max’s cousin.

His friend.

No more watching Rambo movies with him.

No more joking around.

Close to him, a shoe stepped onto gravel.

Shouting to engage her startle reflex and momentarily paralyze her, he rushed ahead, firing.

THE SIGN AT THE SIDE of the highway—Marsdon 20 miles—increased Simon’s feeling of urgency.

So close.

The clouds darkened.

A misty rain blotted the countryside, obscuring the beauty for which the area was famous. He switched on the windshield wipers and glanced toward his phone, hoping to receive another text.

When he finally made it to Marsdon, then what?

There were a lot of woods out here.

A black SUV sped past him, hurling spray across his windshield.

MARTA ADJUSTED THE WINDSHIELD WIPERS to a higher speed and pressed harder on the SUV’s accelerator.

LIZ’S SHOE CRUNCHED THE GRAVEL of the parking lot, the noise seeming so loud that she recoiled, nearly dropping the knife. Someone suddenly shouted to her left.

Max.

His footsteps thundering toward her.

Gunshots roared.

A bullet tugged her right sleeve.

It would have struck her chest if she hadn’t lurched back from the sound she made on the gravel.