muttered as he pushed the gate farther open.
She nodded, following him through and into an alley.
He looked at the assault rifle in his hand. “I guess I can’t take this out onto the street.” First he used his shirt to wipe off his fingerprints. Then he set the weapon on the ground before hustling Carrie along the alley.
When they had turned a corner, putting another building between them and the scene of carnage, he called the safe house.
Gary Blain answered again. “Wyatt?”
“Yes. We got out of there. We’re coming back. We won’t have the town car.”
“Thank God you’re okay.” He paused. “What about Collins?”
“He didn’t make it.”
Gary absorbed that bit of bad news, then asked, “What are you going to do for transportation?”
“There’s a Zipcar agency a couple of blocks away. We can rent one of those.”
“Be careful down there, man.”
“I always am.”
When he hung up, Carrie looked at him. “What’s a Zipcar?”
“Cars you can rent by the hour. Like bicycles in Europe.”
“I didn’t know about that, either.”
Probably a function of her living in a million-dollar condo in Columbia Heights with a spectacular view of the city. He was tempted to say something about her dad’s money making it unnecessary for her to rent anything, but he decided there was no point in needling her. Not after they’d narrowly escaped getting killed—and after he’d seen what she was made of. He’d known she had the guts to turn in men plotting against the U.S. government. He hadn’t known the rest.
“Are you going to call the police now?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.
“We still can’t trust them. We still don’t have a handle on how those guys found out about your meeting. For all we know, the terrorists have a spy in the D.C. police department.”
She winced. “How would that be possible?”
“It just takes one bad cop who wants to supplement his income.”
“But he’d know he’d be setting us up to get killed.”
“Some people will do just about anything for money. Do you know how many people got killed because Aldrich Ames, that turncoat in the CIA, blew their cover?”
“I don’t know the exact number, but I get your point.”
“Which means I’m not taking any chances,” he answered as he led her down Tenth Street to the storefront with the Zipcar office.
The blond young man behind the counter, wearing a dress shirt and tie, looked up as they stepped in.
“We’d like a vehicle with four-wheel drive,” Wyatt said. Carrie looked surprised but said nothing.
“How long will you be needing it?”
“At least a day.”
“There will be extra charges if you turn it in later.”
“Understood.”
“Driver’s license?”
Beside him Carrie tensed. He touched her arm reassuringly, then dug into his wallet and pulled out an alternate ID.
He handed over a license that said he was Will Hanks.
The clerk filled out the paperwork, and they were out of the office and on the road in less than fifteen minutes.
Carrie sank into the passenger seat of the Chevy Equinox, leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. He watched her take a few moments to catch her breath before she turned to him. “You always carry fake ID?”
“Yeah.” His gaze alternated between her and the road. “You did good back there.”
“What choice did I have?”
“A lot of people would have gone to pieces or frozen up when the crap hit the fan. You didn’t.”
She huffed out a breath. “I guess I didn’t go to pieces when I spotted those guys in the park, either.”
“True.”
She made a snorting sound. “One minute I was taking pictures of a happy little eagle family. Then I was in the middle of an action-adventure movie.”
“More real than 3-D.”
“Yeah. When they shoot at you in a 3-D movie, you can’t get killed.”
He turned onto Connecticut Avenue and took that route toward the suburbs.
“Why did you get a four-wheel-drive car?” she asked.
“We might not be going in the front entrance to the safe house,” he answered, then switched the subject. “I want to find out who ratted you out. Who knew about your meeting downtown?”
She sighed. “I did discuss it with my dad because he wanted to stay informed.”
“He asked me questions about the meeting, too.”
She turned her head toward him. “But he wouldn’t tell anyone. He doesn’t even trust the government. He hired you and your team because he wanted to keep me safe.”
Wyatt nodded. “Other people are at his house. Someone might have heard.”
“No one there would set me up like that.”
Although Wyatt heard the note of conviction in her voice, he wasn’t so sure. He’d be the judge of who might have betrayed Carrie. Right now, though, his primary goal was to get her back to safety, and he needed to make sure nobody was on their tail.
He wanted to speed back to the safe house, but he allowed himself to go no faster than five miles above the speed limit as he watched the rearview mirror for any signs that they were being followed. He saw none.
Pulling out his phone again, he dialed the secure number. This time he waited eight rings, but nobody picked up. A very bad sign.
Instead of leaving a message, he clicked off.
“What?” she asked.
“Nobody answered.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t like it.”
They were on a secondary road that led through the rolling Maryland countryside. As he’d suggested he might do, he turned off onto a dirt track that circled the safe-house property, staying on the alert
