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Tires screeched. He heard the clunk of a transmission being shifted, then the unmistakable whir of an engine in reverse. Fisher didn't bother looking, he simply got up and ran.
11
HEdidn't have time to think, to entertain the only question that popped into his head: How did they find me?He only had time to react. His mind switched over to evasion-and-escape mode.
He sprinted down the ditch, around the bend, then up the slope, across the road into the opposite ditch, and then through a hedgerow bordering a farmer's field. Now on even ground--the field had not yet been tilled--he picked up speed, ru
He covered the quarter-mile field in just over a minute. He was almost to the far tree line. Come on, come on . . .If it was Hansen and his team, they would be in two cars. Do your job. . . .He glanced over his shoulder and saw a dark sedan turning onto the Vianden road. A figure was leaning out the driver's-side rear window, pa
He took off ru
He kept ru
Fisher got up and kept ru
HEput another half mile between himself, Ernsdorff's estate, and Hansen's team, then stopped. He needed to process what had just happened. Unless he'd made a huge mistake at some point in the last two days, Hansen and company shouldn't have been able to track him here. Fisher mentally retraced his steps, starting with his boarding of the train in Tetange and ending with his arrival at the campsite outside Scheurerof. His credit cards and passports were sanitized; he'd given no one specifics of his plans; his comm protocols were streamlined and compartmentalized. . . . So how had they known to come here? Only one answer popped into his head, and the thought of it made his stomach churn. It didn't seem possible; at the very least she wouldn't have been that sloppy. If he were wrong, however, he'd just uploaded the contents of Ernsdorff's server to the one person who shouldn't have it.
HEcrossed the bridge adjoining the camping grounds thirty minutes later, found the trail, and made his way back to his site. Through the trees he saw a glimmer of light and realized it was a car's dome light. Fisher crouched down and got his bearings. He was in the right place. He got up and crept closer. When he was within twenty feet of his Range Rover, he knew there was no mistake: The tailgate was open. Fisher drew his pistol. Silhouetted by the dome light, a figure was leaning into the Range Rover, rummaging through Fisher's belongings. The figure turned his head, and in the dim light Fisher saw a red, green, and yellow knit cap on the person's head. One of his campsite neighbors. The idiot was pillaging his vehicle. Fisher couldn't help but smile. If this didn't take the prize, he didn't know what would. He barely survives a hairy exfiltration only to find himself being burglarized by a Luxembourgian hippie, probably so high he was simply looking for Twinkies. So surreal was the situation that it took Sam a couple of moments to wrap his mind around it.
He pulled the Nomex balaclava down over his face, tucked the SC next to his leg, and stepped from the bushes. "Stop right there," he said in rough but passable Luxembourgish. "Police."
The hippie froze.
"Hands up. Turn around."
The hippie complied, and Fisher saw what looked like a bayonet in his right hand, but in the next instant realized it was a lock shim. The hippie had some skills; opening automatic locks with a shim took a fine touch.
Suddenly, to Fisher's right came a woman's scream. He flicked his eyes that way--saw another flash of red, green, and yellow--and thought, Hippie girlfriend.
The woman ran screaming in the direction of the main road.
For a split second Fisher's instincts took control, and he brought the SC up and around, drawing a bead on her back. He caught himself and turned back to the hippie boyfriend, who hadn't moved a muscle.
"Leave," Fisher said.
The hippie hesitated.
"Go!" Fisher barked.
The hippie took off, sprinting after his girlfriend.
Damn it.
FISHERchecked the Pelican case; thankfully, it was unmolested. In addition to miscellaneous bits of gear, the case contained all his credit cards and passports. He had little to worry about, actually. As with everything it modified, DARPA had engineered the case not only to be tamperproof but also to withstand a remarkable amount of abuse.
He slammed the tailgate shut, got into the Range Rover, and started the engine. He reached the site's main entrance a few seconds after the hippie couple and caught a glimpse of them pounding on the door of the caretaker's cabin as he swept past them and turned onto the dirt tract. Thirty seconds later he reached a blacktop road, rue de Sanatorium, turned east toward Scheuerof, drove fast for a quarter mile, then slowed down to the speed limit. He wasn't happy about heading into town, as the Scheuerof police department would be the first to get the call from the distressed hippies, but his only other choice was to backtrack through Vianden, an even larger population center. The sooner he could get through Scheuerof and onto the rural roads that ran along the German border, the safer he would be.