One of the men was Eli Morrison, and the expression on his face looked stormy. She didn’t recognize the other two suited figures with him.
Sydney let herself stay relaxed and slouched against the wall, but every single one of her senses sharpened as she watched the men disappear into a waiting car, which then pulled quietly away from the street.
She turned her phone up and pointed the camera toward the departing car. Then she tapped it on the screen.
A blinking red dot appeared over it.
“Track,” she said in a low, clear voice.
The red dot stopped blinking, and the camera swiped away to reveal a dot on her maps.
She pocketed her phone and pushed away from the wall. Her boots turned in the direction of the car.
The sedan paused at the light, then turned left, the same way that Penelope’s car had gone. As Sydney reached the intersection and turned with it, the car changed several lanes. Then it veered left into a lane of parked cars and sped up, screeching to a halt at the end and cutting back over into the right lane. It made an abrupt left turn and disappeared around the corner.
A classic maneuver to throw off anyone who might be trying to tail them.
Sydney broke into a sprint. She cut across the traffic, ignoring the honks of complaint from drivers, and burst onto the opposite sidewalk. As she turned the corner, she checked her phone and noted the car making another left, then right. She ran down the street parallel to it, then darted under an archway that led into an alley of mews. At the end of the row, she kicked off against the wall and grabbed the edge of a hanging flower basket for balance, raining petals down as she pulled herself up to clutch the railing of the second floor’s balcony. She swung her legs over the side, and jumped up to grab the balcony door’s upper ledge. Two more kicks, and she’d grabbed the edge of the roof.
Her lungs squeezed in protest at her sudden burst of activity. She hung there for a second, forcing herself to take in deep, measured breaths, trying to ignore the low waves of pain pulsing through her.
It eased slightly, enough for her to swing herself up onto the roof. She crouched there for a moment, wincing. As she did, she saw the car come back into view, zooming down the street at full speed.
Damn.She couldn’t keep chasing it on foot through the city like this. Sauda’s gentle scolding came back to her from her recruit days, when she was doing timed laps on the training floor.
Speed it up out there, Cossette!Sauda had called to her.
Sydney had just nodded, swallowed the pain in her lungs, and pushed herself onward.
After, Sauda had made a surprise appearance during dinner, coming to sit beside her as she took a quiet meal by herself in one of the headquarters’ dining rooms.
Sydney could still remember straightening up out of respect as the woman approached, and then hunching back down when Sauda gave her a nonchalant wave.
I can run the circuit again tomorrow,Sydney had started to say, in apology for her performance on the track. But Sauda had cut her off with a shake of her head.
Tomorrow, come with me,the woman had replied.You don’t have to run the fastest to beat your opponents.She’d given Sydney a wry smile.You just need to be the smartest.
Now Sydney instinctively fixed her posture and breathed deeply. She ducked low, until her figure was completely hidden behind the chimneys, and then studied the street from her hiding place.
Her gaze settled on a parked motorbike beside a rubbish bin surrounded by black garbage bags.
“Apologies in advance,” she muttered, as if the bike’s owner could hear her.
As the car drove past her, she darted out from behind the chimneysand swung over the side of the house’s roof, dropped down to the balcony, then down further to the street. Once she landed, she ran to the motorbike, pulled out a tiny gadget switch hanging on her keychain, and glanced quickly around. Shuttered row of supermarkets and nurseries, no pedestrians.
She undid the hood of the bike, exposing the tangle of wires underneath. There, she pulled apart the ignition lock and inserted both ends of the wiring into the slots.
Vroom.
Sydney smiled as the engine rewarded her with a satisfying roar. Then she straddled the bike and hit the pedal, skipping with a lurch onto the road.
The wind blew cold against her face, stinging her cheeks. She veered sharply left to follow the car, then slowed down and hung back as the vehicle hit a red light. She turned off the motorcycle’s lights. Her outfit blended her into the night.
As they hit a second stop, the car suddenly sped up and made a sharp right when it wasn’t its turn to go. The car on the other side of the intersection screeched to a halt. As Sydney sped past it, she could hear its driver shouting something angrily at the disappearing vehicle. She revved her bike. As the intersecting driver started pulling forward, she zoomed past him. The shouts behind her faded away.
Up ahead, the car turned onto a bridge, merging with a rapid stream of other cars. Sydney followed it on. Some distance across the water, she could see the silhouette of Westminster Bridge against the black horizon. Where were they heading?
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the car made a quick turn halfway on the bridge, its tires bumping hard up the middle divider. Cars behind it swerved, screeching at its abrupt move.
