Absolutely. He would be a fool to draw more agents after him.

Okay. So maybe she could a.s.sume he wouldn't kill her unless she forced his hand. Hopefully. Then what was the point of this?

Why wasn't he saying anything? He had slipped into the room unnoticed. He could have just as easily closed the door and run.

Like any good agent he would have his doc.u.ments on himhe could have abandoned the clothes, the toiletries and the dog-eared copy of Gogol's Dead Souls, and escaped the country while he had a chance. But he hadn't. He had to know how much she knew and maybe most importantly, if she had any information about his son. That's why he was wearing her down by waiting her out.

Garrison still had his hand on Margot's neck and began to stroke her lightly with his thumb.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If only she could get a read on his state of mind. If she could sense any instability, a vulnerability, she might be able to turn the tables.

She felt the pressure on her shoulder increase and heard the bedsprings give as he sat down. He laid something on the bed.

Then he was by her ear.

"Short-staffed, were they?" His voice was low and insinuating.

Margot said nothing. She recalled her training on interrogation techniques and knew he was working her, but she couldn't help but bristle at the remark.

"I imagine someone more experienced is en route right now. Hmm? But that will take time. And we'll use that time productively, don't you think?"

He was so close to her face Margot could smell the stale coffee on his breath. Her mind raced. She needed to deflect him from the line he was taking before she just shut down.

"Let's make this simple, what do you say? You tell me what brought you here to me and we'll be done with it."

Margot stared at a long, jagged crack on the wall she faced.

CIA had Jonathan. She could use this. And then she suddenly felt so tired she just wanted to lean her head against the wall and close her eyes.

"Hmm. The quiet type, huh? I can relate to that. I don't think I've said two words to anyone in weeks. But it's a lonely business, right? We knew that going in. I can tell you, though, you'll be glad to be out of it. Yes. This is your day. You should feel fortunate. Knowledge is what we all want, isn't it? And now you know. You know the day. The hour, I might even saybut we'll have to see. I'm a little rusty."

Margot swallowed hard. She could feel the hair standing up on the back of her neck and knew Garrison could sense her terror. He was playing her. And it was working.

"I know, it's a little scary at first. But I think you'll come to see how lucky you are. Just think, you'll never have to experience the slow, grinding decay of your own body and believe me, I'm older than you, it's not much fun." He chuckled lightly as if he were letting her in on a private joke. "Yes. Today is your day.

And the question is, how will you spend these last moments? In comfort? Or not."

He was bluffing. He must be. He knew what resources would be put into his capture if he killed an agent. He wouldn't risk it.

Right?

Margot's mind began to wander. An image floated before her on the wall. The ace of hearts. She had a card to play. But all she could do was move her finger along its imaginary edge. She thought of her brother, Mark. Her parents had died when she was young and Mark had raised her. He was so proud of her. She had never known a man as tender, as caring as Mark. It made her hurt to think of him, imagining him seeing her like this. She felt herself crumbling. All that she needed to remember, that the CIA had Garrison's son, that she could use it as leverage, and that it would surely work, it all dissolved, blending and disappearing into her fear which overwhelmed any possibility of rational thought.

Garrison reached over and switched off the bedside lamp.

Darkness. She heard the snap of the safety on the pistol and flinched, but he held her firm by the shoulder.

He won't do it. He won't do it.

She had no ability to save herself.

She heard him snap the safety again. Back and forth. Each time she expected the next inevitable motion of his finger on the trigger. She squeezed her eyes shut and then forced them open again and tried to focus on the crack on the wall, barely visible in the dark. Then she realized with finality that she was mourning herself. She had accepted the end. She kept very still and thought of nothing.

Hannah woke in darkness as Rennie shifted her body behind her. She hadn't intended to sleep. Their mouths had been so close. Even though Rennie drew away and told her to sleep she hadn't wanted the moment to end, not then, but she succ.u.mbed.

Now she knew it was time for them to walk but she didn't want to move, not yet, and drew Rennie's arms tighter around her.

She felt perfectly safe. Absurd, considering she could hardly be in more danger with Armin's men hunting them, thirsting for revenge.

What would her parents think? Falling for a girl, a girl, a womanand worse, the horror, a girl with a German name. Vogel.

How inappropriate. How less like a bird could this woman be?

She laughed light and low, her voice muddied with sleep.

"You okay?"

She felt Rennie's arms tighten around her chest. Hannah stretched, feeling Rennie's soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hard abdomen against her back. She was so ready. She raised her head and moved her cheek along Rennie's, soft and smooth against her own. She felt Rennie respond, moving against her, her hands moving down Hannah's sides to her hips, on to her thighs and then back.

Hannah shifted her hips, moving closer into her. Rennie made a low sound and then spoke.

"We really need to go."

"Yes." Hannah rested her hands on Rennie's, following her motion along her body.

"We really should go, now."

"Yes."

Rennie stopped the movement of her hands, suddenly, and Hannah opened her eyes. Rennie was looking at her, their mouths almost touching. She looked serious and sad in the shadows, her face flushed with desire.

Hannah cleared her throat. "When?" She wanted her now.

"Soon."

"How?"

"I don't know." Rennie leaned closer. She seemed ready to take her in, stopping just before their lips met. "I'll find a way."

Hannah could barely breathe. "Promise me."

Rennie nodded. "Count on it."

Hannah stood, slowly, and offered Rennie a hand, pulling her up and into an embrace. They stood like that for a long moment, Hannah's face in the curve above Rennie's collarbone.

"Let's go. It won't be long now and then we can truly rest."

They walked, as they had walked for so long. It seemed to Hannah that she had spent a lifetime in these woods. The night was dark and Rennie led. Then the ground leveled and the walking was easier. Hannah's nerves ate at her. They were so close now she felt that disaster must surely strike at any moment. It was her nature. A pessimism born of her past. All that's good can be wrested from you even before you realize what is happening, before you realize your life is over. But she had already been through this. In her cell, she had believed her life was over, that she would never get out. She just didn't have the courage to end it on her own terms. She remembered discovering a tear along the edge of her blanket. They had given it to her that first day, when she was still dazed from the drugs. It was dirty but amazingly hadn't rotted. She had pulled on the tear, had seen that it would rip straight and if she persisted she would have a three-inch wide strip of strong material that would wrap snugly around the beam above her cot.

For weeks she obsessed on that tear, fingering it, tempted to continue it. The blanket was pale blue, a roughly woven cotton that made her think of bawling babies, of life just beginning as she fantasized about ending her own. She wondered how they might have acquired ita fund drive at the mosque? Little old ladies rooting through their drawers to find something they no longer wanted, to donate to a good cause? When she would lie awake at night, the blanket drawn up to her chin, she'd tuck the ends tight around her throat, relishing the sensation of what was possible, an end to everything, a comfort. One night, lying in the darkness, she decided she would do it as soon as the sky began to lighten.

Then she slept, more deeply than she had since she'd been taken.

When she woke, it was late, she had slept far past dawn. Her stall had warmed and she had kicked the blanket off her body during the night. But the ends were still tight around her neck. She was soaked with sweat from the complete absence of circulation in the stall and the rough, damp fabric pressing against her throat felt like an attack. She clutched at it as if it would strangle her, and tore it from her neck. She put her legs on the floor, sat up on the edge of the light cot, careful not to tip it. Her face in her hands, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, knowing she would never do it and knowing the tears wouldn't come.

Hannah took a deep breath. Recalling that time always filled her with dread. But here in the woods, moving toward freedom, she could feel its power recede. She drew a finger along her neck. Her bones were still intact. She could still feel the ghost of Rennie's breath.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Rennie felt her adrenaline begin to surge like a racehorse at the gate, and it was all she could do to hold herself back from breaking into a run. They were that close.

All the horrors of the past week began to shimmer and fade in the face of this. She knew the terrors would return, perhaps in the night, rising up in the dark, but now all she could think was reach the village, drop the doc.u.ments with the CIA contact, go home. Every other concern slipped into a distant second place.

As she walked, she realized she had been imagining time for the promise she had made to Hannah. In a boarding house. On the plane home. Foolish adolescent fantasies. As soon as they left the country, the FBI would want them as far away from one another as possible. They couldn't risk any connection between Rennie and Armin's death. She shouldn't be thinking about this now. It was completely beyond her control. And she despised surrendering control over her own life.

Rennie pressed the b.u.t.ton to illuminate her watch face. 2300 hours. 11:00 PM. Then her eye caught the change in the light up ahead as the woods ceded to the field where days before she had floated down in the blackest of nights. A shiver rippled up her spine. She felt the tension in her forehead smooth. She closed her eyes for just a moment.

Thank you.

She turned to Hannah and watched her face change as she took in the sight.

"Is this it?" she said quietly.

Rennie nodded.

Their shared instinct may have been to break into a run, but they both seemed to feel the weight of the moment and slowed their pace. Each had been transformed through their experiencesHannah in ways Rennie could only imagine. She wanted to take her in and wipe it all away, but knew nothing was that simple. For herself, Rennie wondered how she would be changed by all that had happened. Would she be the same or did she even want to be the same woman who'd jumped from the plane a week before? A woman who took no chances, who kept herself safe, at least in regard to her heart. Her career might be over when she got home. She vowed to open herself, to surrender to something that might be real. So much had happened in these woods. Death and terror. And a connection was wrought between her and Hannah. She couldn't know whether it would survive reentry into the world.

Beyond the field was the road and from there it was only a short walk to the village. Rennie felt her mind settle. Thoughts of the future and of the past would have to wait. It was time to finish this thing, finish it as cleanly as she could.

"We need to change into fresh clothes before we get to the village. The locals don't appreciate Western women in pants, let alone Western women covered in blood and dirt."

Rennie dropped her pack to the ground. She pulled the shirts and pants from the pocket where they were compactly stored.

Hannah turned her back as she changed. She wore no bra and her ribs seemed even more defined in the moonlight. Rennie stripped quickly, dressed, and bent to pick up the satellite phone and clip it onto her waist. The moment it was in her hand the call-in signal light began to glow.

Now what?

She raised a finger to Hannah indicating for her to wait and squatted, punching the numbers on the phone, expecting the worst.

"We're secure. Vogel?"

"Yes."

"Location?" Rennie thought she could hear tension in Ryder's voice.

"We're almost out of the woods. We'll be on the road in minutes."

"Good. There's been a change of plans."

Rennie put her hand on the stock of her sub-gun.

Ryder continued, "CIA has lost contact with their agent in the village. Garrison may have her."

Brilliant.

"Orders?"

He paused. "I have CIA on the line who will brief you."

"Agent Vogel?" Rennie heard a woman's voice.

"I can hear you. Go ahead."

"We've lost contact with our case officer, Margot Day, and think she may have gotten into some trouble." Her voice hardened before she spoke again. "As you are the only U.S. personnel on the scene, we would appreciate any help you can give us."

I bet.

The woman gave Rennie the location of the boarding house, which they were only aware of because of her doc.u.ment. She also gave her Margot Day's address in the village. Garrison's son would arrive in a couple of hours, probably too late to use as bait."You need to move, Vogel. Garrison won't take much time 00.

with her. He'll take what he can get and move on."

"Understood."

"And be careful." The tone of her voice sounded as if this advice was pointless.

Rennie keyed off the phone and pulled on her pack. Hannah was looking at her expectantly.

Rennie shook her head. "There's something else we have to do." She told Hannah about the call.

"Sometimes I feel like this is never going to end."

Rennie laid her hand gently on Hannah's shoulder. "It will.

I promise."

They crossed the threshold, where woods became a sea of gra.s.s without fanfare, wading into the long tendrils. She could hear sheep in the distance. Rennie glanced over at Hannah. She was fully alert now, the transition having shaken off her fatigue.

Her features seemed almost electric with awareness as she took each careful step. The field was vast and Rennie thought of the farmer who cared for the land and wondered if he ever paused as he worked the field and thought of what lay beyond the woods.

Rennie knew next to nothing about agriculture. The landscape of her youth was defined by a few city blocks.