Chapter 5
Five
Sweat poured down John’s face. Vivian wasn’t kidding about the duct being hot.
“Fuck!” She sucked in her breath behind him.
No room to twist to check on her. “You okay?”
“Scratched my leg. Minor, but my pants are trashed. But honestly, they were trashed already. Dry cleaners wouldn’t be able to remove the grime. From yours either, by the way. Sorry about your dress khakis.”
“The state of my pants is not top of mind. Getting out of here alive is.”
Light sliced through a vent up ahead.
“Look, everything you’re doing, I’m doing too, and doing it backwards. This is perfectly safe. The duct will take us to the parking garage, but it won’t kill us. The bad guys with guns, on the other hand…”
John closed his eyes. “Not helping.”
“Which is why I focused on pants,” she offered. “The mundane keeps me centered.”
“You might not need centering if you had a normal job.”
“I have a normal job. Lots of people do it.” Her feet bumped into his. “Why’d you stop?”
“End of the line.” He pushed at the vent. “It’s stuck.”
“Not stuck, fastened. You have to punch it.”
“It’s metal.”
“Well, we can’t go back.” From behind him, he heard shimmying. “So either you punch through it or we live here now. Give me your hand.”
“For what?” He shimmied his hand past his hip and wiggled his fingers.
She thrust a bundle of cloth at him. “My suit jacket. Wrap it around your fist and punch at the vent. The screws are a half inch, and the metal’s flimsy. You’ll win.”
He didn’t believe her, but they didn’t have much choice. After wrapping the jacket around his hand, he backed his elbow up as far as possible and punched forward. The vent cover popped free easier than a Coors twist-off and clattered onto a car’s trunk.
“Good job!” she cheered.
Pride pushed away the stress for a hot second. Her praise always gave him a bright burst of serotonin.
“Check to see if anyone’s around.”
Zero people and a handful of cars dotted this level. “Seems clear.”
“Then go,” she said. “I’ll follow.”
He crawled forward and stretched toward the car.
With his arms braced on the trunk of the car parked under the vent, he wriggled free, then hopped to the ground.
Vivian’s sensible flats emerged, followed by shapely calves and thighs.
Her legs hinged at the hips, and her feet touched the trunk.
She yanked her purse from the duct, then jumped down from the car.
Dirt streaked her face. “Hi. You good?”
He had no idea. “Yeah.”
“Great.” She gestured for him to follow. “We’re over there.”
“What about your coworkers?”
The car beeped as she clicked the fob. “I’ll check on them after you’re safe.”
Safe. Safe would be good.
If he thought about the past fifteen minutes for too long, he might have a breakdown. Unless he’d already had one and the man who emerged from the shadows in head-to-toe black was a figment of his imagination.
Just in case, he yelled, “Look out!”
Vivian switched into MMA fighting mode. When she connected with the man in black, something in the intruder’s arm popped. A hunting knife spun across the parking garage.
“Get in the car!” she shouted.
As John dove into the passenger seat, she kneed the man in the balls. He dropped like an anchor. While he was on his knees, Vivian delivered a roundhouse kick to his face to finish the job.
Wait, nope, not finished. Three more men ran down the ramp.
John opened her door from the inside.
Vivian jumped into the driver’s seat, hit the ignition, then peeled from their space. Gunshots popped around them. She hunched and shoved his head between his knees.
“Keep your head down,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
He twisted under her grip. “But your head’s up.”
“So I can see.”
“Why are people after you?”
“Stop talking. We might be bugged. I can’t deal with everything at once.”
“But—”
G-forces tugged his stomach as they squealed around a turn.
“I promise we’ll talk later.” She let go of his head and popped open the glove compartment. “Put your phone in airplane mode in case they’re tracking you. Then put your head back down.”
“Why would anyone be tracking me?” He adjusted the setting, tossed the phone back in the glove box and rested his head on his knees.
“Dunno. But if it’s not me, it’s you. We can’t take the chance.” She slowed at the exit, then swiped a parking key card. They sped out of the garage. She wove through the byzantine streets of Washington, DC, with the fluid skill of a Formula 1 driver.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
She shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips.
More turns. Then she stopped. “Okay, it’s safe to come up.”
Between crawling through ducts and spending the last ten panicked minutes in a seated fetal position, he’d developed a cramp, and his neck muscles protested.
She’d parked in a deserted tree-covered lot.
The lamppost flags displayed two letters—AU.
American University sat in a calm area of DC that bordered Maryland.
He joined Vivian outside the car. “We should go to the cops.”
“Not yet. Protocol dictates getting to a safe location, then contacting the chain of command.” She reached into the trunk for her roller bag. “Involving local law enforcement can lead to unnecessary collateral damage.”
She unzipped the suitcase and efficiently transferred items into her work tote. Passport, EpiPens, the travel jewelry case he’d bought her last Christmas, her glasses, a couple pair of silk underpants, an outfit, toiletries, first-aid kit, and…a phone he’d never seen before.
“Essentials,” she said. “Anything you can’t replace easily and need for a few days.”
He stepped back. “Are we still going on a trip?”
She leveled a gaze at him. “Maybe, but we definitely have to go black. No car, no contacts, change in route. I’ll figure it out, and we’ll have a long, detailed discussion about everything when we’re in a safe place. But right now, I need you to hurry. Please.”
John shifted his weight to shake off the tightness in his ribs. He believed her, and he had infuriatingly few options. Despite everything, his instinct was to stick with her. From his carry-on, he removed toiletries, boxers, a change of clothes and his phone charger.
“Leave that—we can’t take the phones. Too easy to slip up and turn them on, which means we can be tracked.”
He clutched the charger. “But I need to be able to reach Thomas and my parents. Shouldn’t I warn them?”
“It’s safest if we don’t contact them yet, but I can mention them when I call in to the office.
On that note—when we’re in public, vague is best. Like when we play Taboo.
References to things only you and I understand.
” She freed an index card from a rubber-banded stack.
“Copy important numbers from your cell, but do not take it out of airplane mode.”
He yearned for his normal world from twenty-four hours ago. But that world was gone, and Vivian seemed to know what she was doing.
With an outstretched hand, he asked, “Got a pen?”
* * *
At the Tenleytown-AU Metro entrance, Vivian dropped their phones in the garbage. John cringed, but she had no choice. After three stops, she signaled for them to exit. Then they doubled back and took the train one stop in the reverse direction, getting out at Bethesda, Maryland.
The designated contact spot was three blocks away.
When they crossed Woodmont Avenue toward the Tastee Diner, John asked, “Hungry?”
“No. This place has a pay phone. It’s old school, but it works.”
She unzipped her tote and dug through its morass for her index cards of coded phone numbers. Gah, there was so much stuff in here since she’d grabbed the essentials from her suitcase. She needed to make room and organize this mess.
“Here.” She thrust John’s wallet, Zippo and flash drive toward him.
He handed the drive back. “That’s not mine. The wedding one has an Apple logo on it.”
Cold washed down her body. She must’ve mixed up the drives at the office. Dammit, her feelings for John were dangerous for her professional concentration.
Noted.
She slid the drive into the secret pocket in her bag. Silver lining—the drive she’d stolen from the Rocksy painting was safe from whomever attacked the office. Which she’d point out to MacColl when he lit her ass up for the mistake.
If he was still—no.
She had to believe her colleagues were okay. That they found ways out too, and they’d all regroup at a safe house to plan their next move. She refused any other possibility.
“Stay close.” She plunked quarters into the pay phone and dialed MacColl’s number.
Her stomach shrank with each unanswered ring. After ten, she hung up.
Protocol dictated she contact Deputy Director Janna Vandenberg next. The deputy director was an agency lifer who spent half her career in the field and had ascended the hierarchy without alienating the rank and file.
In other words, she performed miracles.
Vivian fed the quarters to the pay phone again.
“Vandenberg.” The deputy director’s soft, authoritative voice caught Vivian by surprise. “Who’s on the line?”
“Canvas.” Dammit. Her voice had wobbled.
“I hoped it was you. We’d like to talk to you.”
“Ma’am, first, what about Boss, Earpiece, and…”
Lawrence didn’t have a code name.
“I’ll update you when you come in for a briefing.”
“Where to?” Vivian fidgeted with the steel phone cord as she waited for Vandenberg to name a safe house in the area.
“Take the Blue Bird to HQ. And bring Brawn.”
Vivian cut her eyes to John standing sentry by the booth.
Head to Langley on the shuttle? John hadn’t officially been cleared, so he shouldn’t go anywhere near HQ.
Plus the attack on the office wasn’t a random break-in—assailants had followed her to the garage.
For all she knew, her cover was blown. When that happened, you did not invite the officer to headquarters.
“Canvas?” Vandenberg prompted. “Can you do that?”
“Yes, ma’am, can do.”
“Good. See you soon.”
The line went dead.
Technically, she hadn’t lied. She could follow the orders.
But she wouldn’t. Things would be different if Vandenberg had used MacColl’s code word. Without that additional security, Vivian would listen to her instincts.
She worried the silver pendant on her ever-present necklace.
She’d figure this out eventually. Not this minute, not necessarily today, but her differently wired brain made her naturally good at reasoning. She stepped back from detail, sifted through huge amounts of information to identify patterns and saw the big picture.
That’s what was missing—information.
She folded the door open.
“What do we do now?” John asked.
She rubbed harder at the pendant. “We’ll start with the drive.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a hacker, too?” John crossed his arms. “You always make me deal with the Wi-Fi when it goes out.”
“Because it’s annoying.” She found her burner phone in her bag. “I dabble, but this one’s beyond me. Fortunately I have a friend who can help.”
An e-bike charging station stood a block away. The last time she and Anjali had hit the bars on Woodmont, they’d abandoned her car in favor of this mode of transportation. Not the escape vehicles she would have preferred, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Follow me. Our chariots await.” At the station, she texted the service number and paid with a credit card in her sister’s name.
John crossed his arms. This was his look-at-how-easygoing-I-am stance, but he only used it when he was being super judgy.
“You said no cell phones,” he pointed out.
“It’s a burner.” She wrested a bike from the rack and presented it to John. “We’re taking the Capital Crescent Trail. I’ll lead. Keep up.”