They each shook her hand, eyed her. Agent Bea Lyons had salt-and-pepper hair cut short to a sharp point at her jaw, beautiful dark eyes, and a firm grip. “We were told you spent three months with Hurley, by yourself, and you survived. Well done. Hurley trained Royce and me back in the day. I bet if you tried you could take down Royce here. It would do him good. His mouth is bigger than he is.”
King shook her hand. “You can call me Royce. I don’t like Buzz, but no one pays any attention to me except Lyons here, and that’s because she worships me.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Yeah, that’s what I do, moron.” She clipped his muscular arm with her fist and took another sugar cookie.
Elizabeth laughed. “Royce it is.” He was tall, with a poster-square jaw, and buff as a lifeguard even though he had to be in his mid-forties. He’d probably demolish her in a minute in the ring. Elizabeth realized Agent Royce King couldn’t seem to look away from her mouth, but it wasn’t about kissing her. He was watching her talk. Funny how fascinated some Americans were with her accent. She grinned at him. “I suppose we could give it a try in the ring when this is over. Hurley did teach me Krav Maga.”
King looked surprised, then nodded solemnly. “Sure, we can have a go, though I don’t put much truck in Krav Maga, having never had a reason to consider it. Tell you what, Ms. Palmer, let me read up on what it’s all about”—he flexed his biceps—“and that’s all I’ll need. We’ll have ourselves a competition, but only if you promise to keep talking.”
Savich and Sherlock had stayed back with Rome, watching them. Sherlock said, “They like her. She’s as pumped as they are. Rome, you did emphasize to Elizabeth there’s a chance everything could go south, that trying this is entirely up to her?”
“It’s exactly what she wants,” Rome said. “None of the attacks on her have been very well planned, more spur of the moment—we do this and they try that. I don’t think they’ll be any more careful today if they come for her. Again, no time to plan. I sure hope I’m right.”
An hour later, Rome drove the Rubicon out of the Hoover garage, Elizabeth beside him, Bea Lyons and Buzz King pressed down on the floor of the rear seat behind them. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but heating up fast. Another scorcher day.
King called out, “Elizabeth, if they’re trying to kidnap you for ransom, your family must own half of London to make all this worthwhile.”
Elizabeth said, “Alas, my family doesn’t own half of London,and you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. But I’m told terrorists don’t give up on revenge.”
Rome stayed quiet as she told them what had happened in London, listened to Lyons and King disagree about what they might do next. Neither of them thought they’d attack her this morning, but Rome’s gut was telling him they would.
He said, “We’re going to head north toward Baltimore on state and county roads, not I-95, to make us an easier target. These goons don’t care about civilian casualties, but we do. We’ll head toward some of those narrow two-laners that wind through the farm country with a minimal amount of traffic. I’m betting that’s when they’ll come at us, if they do. Hey, guys, how are you feeling back there?”
Agent King called out, “Me, I’m too old for this crap, Foxe. Lyons looks all stretched out and comfy over there, but I’m wedged into the floor, my knees in my nose. I know you didn’t want to rely on a tail car, but I don’t have to like it.”
Agent Lyons said, “Stop your whining, Royce. I’m old too, and I’ve got to hug the freaking H&Ks. They’re not all soft and cuddly like you are.”
King snorted out a laugh.
Rome said, “Elizabeth, keep sharp. It’s only you and me, Buzz and Lyons have to stay down. If you see anyone hanging back, holler.”
“There are lots of cars, weaving in and out, like a deck of cards getting shuffled.”
Rome peeled off the frontage road when he could onto a two-lane country road winding east. It took them past white oaks dotting the landscape to green fenced pastures high with grass on both sides of the road, and more dairy cattle than he’d want to count. There was no traffic at all for minutes at a time. He slowed down, looking to see if a car had followed him at a distance, but there was no one.
King called out, “Elizabeth, if you’re bored and want to talk out loud again—you can say anything, doesn’t matter—I just want to hear you talk. Hey, I might let you beat me at Krav Maga.”
Elizabeth appreciated his trying to distract her, but it was hard enough to breathe in and out, she was so scared and, strangely, excited.Let them do something, let us win, let it all be over.Rome’s long gun was at her feet, but he’d told her she was to touch it only in an extreme emergency. She hadn’t taken the small Ruger Hurley had given her to the Hoover Building, they would have found it at the door, and she could see Rome with his hand out to take it. Ah, but it was snug in the glove compartment, ready if she needed it.
The country road wound through hills and more pastures, past one-lane side roads that led through the pastures and cows toward distant farmhouses. Rome saw a car behind them now with four people in it, two of them kids in the back seat glued to their cell phones.
Suddenly there was a whirring sound overhead. Elizabeth leaned out the window and looked up. “It’s a helicopter, Rome, coming over that hill toward us, maybe a hundred feet up.”
Rome felt his adrenaline spike. “Guys, we were all wrong. This time they have a plan. Of all the things I expected, it wasn’t that they’d come at us in a helicopter. We need to get away from that car behind us, they’re civilians, including kids. There’s a secondary road coming up, one lane, probably with potholes the size of cow patties, so brace yourselves.”
Rome floored the Rubicon to pull away from the car behind them, leaned hard into a right turn onto a weathered asphalt one-lane road, and dodged the potholes. He saw a farmhouse, more cows, but no sign of people anywhere. He called out, “The helicopter’s turned, he’s following us.”
The noise was deafening, scattering the cows beneath it.
Rome said, “The helicopter isn’t like any I’ve ever seen before. Three rotors, looks ancient. It’s slewing left and right, looks clumsy, like the pilot’s having trouble controlling it. A man’s leaning out the open passenger side, holding what looks like an AK-47. He’s going to use it. Get ready, guys. Elizabeth, stay down.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bea rose up fast, then back down. “It looks like an old Sikorsky. Real old, from back in the forties.”
Elizabeth’s knuckles were white on the chicken stick. Rome was looking calm, the idiot.
The Sikorsky made a low pass over the Rubicon, incredibly loud. It did a slow, clumsy turn, shuddering, and jerked forward again, directly at them. The man on the passenger side leaned farther out the open side of the helicopter and fired. Bullets struck the windshield, shattered it.
