“Four, if you include the FBI and the Russians.” Carter hopped on the bike. “Does it feel like lunchtime to you? That hotel kitchen smelled good.”
“I didn’t notice a smell, aside from my own terror. What do we do now?”
“Do some research into who these randoms are.”
“Back at the cabin?” Her butt ached at the thought of another long bike ride.
“First rule of tradecraft: Never go back to the same place twice. Mom’s arranged a safe place for us in D.C.” He went to put on his helmet, then paused. “Thank you,” he said. “If you hadn’t come to find me just then… That took guts.”
“More like the fear of one thing slightly outweighed the fear of the other.”
He grinned, in that way that never failed to make her go all gooey, even amid all this insanity. “That’s my girl.”
Chapter 22
Alice
Carter took what seemed to Alice like a circuitous route out of the city, not that it was a part of the country she’d spent a whole lot of time in. A surveillance-detection route, she guessed, to make sure they weren’t followed. After riding in circles for so long, Alice was thoroughly lost until finally they hit a highway. Weird how she now felt safer on the bike than off. Weird that she was starting to enjoy the feeling of riding. With no conversation possible, no music to listen to, no phone to check, there was nothing to do but gaze at the scenery. And maybe it was the feeling of momentum, maybe it was Carter’s presence, but she realized the pit of worry had lifted from her stomach. They passed familiar signs—Andrews Air Force Base, Richmond, Pennsylvania Avenue—before they exited the highway and, eventually, pulled into the visitor parking outside an upscale condo.
They took a set of stairs to the fifth floor, where he stopped at a door and entered a security code. The lock clicked and he opened the door and waved her through, before picking up a couple of boxes that had been left on the landing outside.
“What is this place?” Alice said, running her hand along a gleaming baby grand piano. Beyond it, a wall of windows openedonto a balcony that overlooked the Potomac. Another wall was filled with books. She peeked into the bedroom, where a huge, beautifully made bed looked out over another balcony. Would they end up in it again? That hadn’t been her motivation for staying with him, but now they were here, alone, the possibility made her breath shallow out—and made pinpricks of delicious heat spring up in all sorts of interesting places. “A step up from the cabin,” she said, collecting herself, and trying not to sound as if she was thinking about sex.
“It’s owned by a woman in my mother’s book club,” Carter said, placing the boxes onto a polished concrete dining table and heading to the kitchen. “She’s in London this week.”
“And no one will find us here?”
“What goes on in book club, stays in book club.”
“This is quite some book club,” Alice said, examining the titles in the bookcase. “Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories and the Hunt for Putin’s Agents, The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War, Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia. It’s not exactlyMemoirs of a GeishaandWhere the Crawdads Sing.”
“I have long suspected that ‘book club’ is code for something else.”
“In my world, it’s code for ‘wine club.’”
“That too, I suspect,” he said, drawing a bottle from the wine rack and reading the label, before sliding it back in. “All the members of this one are retired CIA or Pentagon. Spy nerds. They love criticizing all the factual errors.” He grabbed a croissant from the pantry, walked up to the windows and looked out, eating—not so much appreciating the view as scanning it.
“What are you looking for?” she said, peeking into an equally grand bedroom that shared the view.
“Never go in without knowing at least two ways out.”
“We’re already in.”
“Okay, genius, how would you get out if the front door was blocked?”
“Fire escape?”
“First place they’ll cover.”
“I would rappel off this balcony with bedsheets, break into the apartment below, make my way down the stairs from there, hotwire a boat and head downriver.”
“Me too.”
“I was kidding! I would put my hands up and say, ‘Okay, fine, you got me.’”
“Also a solid strategy,” he said, wandering back to the dining table. “Always better to talk or walk your way out if you can. Don’t run, don’t speed.”
“First rule of tradecraft?”
