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He found her, still hog-tied and up against the side of the van. Taking off her hood, he peeled back the tape from across her mouth as gently as he could.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he pulled out his knife and cut her hands and feet free.
Ryan covered herself with her robe as McGee helped roll her into a sitting position. “I’m okay,” she said, pulling at the tape around her wrists. “What happened? Are they dead?”
“Yeah, they’re dead. Both of them.”
“How’d you find me?”
“They sent a team to my house, too. It’s a good thing I get up every two hours to piss or they might have gotten me also. I tried to call your cell.”
Ryan shook her head. “I needed some sleep. It was turned off.”
“Well, when you didn’t answer I rushed to your place. Got there just as they were loading you into the van.”
“Why didn’t you do something?”
McGee put up his hands. “I needed to make sure there wasn’t a tail-gu
“Why didn’t you PIT them to get them to spin out or run them off the road?”
“And have the van flip over? Something told me they probably didn’t take the time to put a seat belt on you. Listen, I picked my moment. They’re dead and you and I are both alive.”
He was right. “Who the hell are they?”
McGee held up his index finger indicating he’d be right back. Stepping out of the cargo area, he moved back to the cab, and after making sure both of the occupants were dead, he conducted a quick search. He returned to the cargo area with a black duffle bag, which he set on the floor and opened up.
“Two H&K MP5s, two Glock 19s, a couple of Tasers, duct tape, power bars, some water bottles, a cell phone, which is probably a burner and won’t lead anywhere, and enough ammo to take on a small Latin American army.”
“But no ID?” asked Ryan.
“No.”
“So they’re pros.”
McGee nodded.
Ockham’s razor. The simplest explanation was usually correct. They had come after both of them. But before today, there wasn’t anything that she and McGee shared that somebody could want to kill them over. All of that had changed since she had confronted Durkin. This wasn’t a coincidence. This had to be tied to him. She could feel it. “Did you see any books?” she asked.
“Books?”
“A paperback of some sort.”
“Now that you mention it,” said McGee, as he returned to the front of the van.
Ryan could hear him open the cab. “Durkin liked to use them for codes,” she said, loud enough for him to hear. “French lit translated into English. Rousseau or some author like that.”
McGee returned and tossed an aged paperback to her. “Balzac.”
“Damn it. It is Durkin, then.”
“Or,” McGee said, his voice trailing off.
“Or what?”
“Or this is bigger than either of us thought and Johnson is involved, too.”
Ryan looked at him. “The DNI? You’ve got to be joking. I thought he was someone you trusted.”
“At this point, you’re the only one I trust. And until we get to the bottom of this, that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
She winced as she pulled the last piece of duct tape from her arm. “Why’d they drive me all the way out here?”
“It’s as good a place as any to dump a body. Or maybe even two bodies. When I rolled up, they were trying to signal someone with their headlights but I never saw anyone signal back. They waited a while and either got spooked or decided to move to Plan B.”
“Who do you think they were signaling?”
“I don’t know; maybe this was a rendezvous with the team who came gu
“Did the men at your house have guns,” Ryan asked, “or Tasers?”
“Both. Why?”
“Because if they’d wanted to kill us, they would’ve. Why bother giving Tasers to a wet-work team?”
“Lots of reasons.”
“No,” she disagreed. “This has to be about the Jordanians. It’s the only reason we’d both be targeted. And I told Durkin everything. There’s nothing he could gain from interrogating me. He knows all of it already.”
“What if he wanted to know who else you might have told about the Jordanians?”
“Then he could have asked me. Listen, the only reason Durkin could possibly have to snatch me alive is that he wanted to kill me someplace else other than my apartment. And apparently, he didn’t want me to die alone, which means he had something cooked up to explain why you and I died out here together in the middle of nowhere.”
“Did you tell Durkin you were going to talk to me?” asked McGee.
“No.”
“Then that would mean he had a tail on you. So, he not only knows that you talked to me, but that we talked to Johnson. How could he hope to get away with killing us?”
“I hate to say it, but either you’re right and Johnson’s involved, or Durkin came up with something so airtight, he was convinced our deaths could be explained away without even the DNI asking any questions. Either way, I don’t think you and I were supposed to walk out of here tonight.”
“I think you’re right. So now what?”
“Now we get the hell out of here,” replied Ryan as she grabbed one of the MP5s from the bag and moved toward the door.
McGee extended her his hand to help her exit, and then gathered up the duffle. “What should we do about the van and the bodies?” he asked.
Ryan looked inside the cab. In addition to the two corpses slumped over in their seats, the cab was splattered with blood and pieces of brain. “If we had enough time to clean it up and make it look like we took their people hostage, I’d say let’s opt for that. But all we’ve got time to do now is burn it. Let’s burn the entire thing.”
McGee nodded and after throwing the duffle in his 4Ru
It took several minutes, but she was able to locate all six. “Got ’em,” she said as she pocketed the last one. “You ready?”
“Good to go,” he said, flashing her the thumbs-up.
They drove out of the woods and toward the highway just as the van exploded in a billowing fireball. When they arrived at the junction where the dirt road ended and the pavement began, he stopped and asked, “Okay. Which way? South or north?”
They both knew that neither of them could go home. They had to go to ground, someplace safe; someplace where they could assess and plan their next move.
Ryan removed the atlas wedged next to her seat and studied it for a moment. Finally she said, “South.”
McGee accelerated and turned onto the pavement. “Where are we headed?”
“How long will it take us to get to Fort Belvoir from here?”
“About twenty minutes, why? What’s at Belvoir?”
Ryan looked over at him and replied, “For the moment, sanctuary.”
“What do you mean, sanctuary?”
“I mean, Belvoir has one of the last rocks in the world Durkin would ever think of looking under.”
“Knowing Durkin,” McGee countered, “he’s going to be looking under every rock.”
“Not this one,” Ryan said. “Trust me.”
CHAPTER 25
BOSTON
MASSACHUSETTS
The four-story redbrick office building was a block east of Boston Common at the corner of Washington and Essex streets. On its ground floor was an entrance to the subway station and a smattering of retail space, including a Dunkin’ Donuts. On the fourth floor was the killer’s destination, a Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles office.
Keys, as well as the building’s layout and the RMV’s alarm code, had already been provided for him. He kept a silenced semi-automatic beneath his coveralls, but it had not proved necessary. It was the middle of the night and the building was vacant. No one would have any idea he was there. All he needed to focus on was his assignment.