"We don’t have time."
The tree cover swallowed them, and she kept the pedal down, weaving through brush and timber, while the SxS got smacked with branches. In the distance, she could see a break in the trees.
The access road.
She glanced at Gideon. The legend. A man she’d admired from a distance for years. Meeting him was both exhilarating and anticlimactic.
He braced his feet against the floorboards, hair wild, eyes wide and focused, and hands gripped tight around the weapon. "Diner and then campsite. It’s not up for negotiation if you want me to come with you."
"Maybe the campsite, if what’s there is important, but why the diner?" She eased up slightly on the gas. She had maybe four minutes before she had to decide which direction she’d turn this vehicle.
"Intel gathering. I think someone there might have figured out how those assholes knew I would be there.
"I knew you’d be there just by tracking the nodes that went offline." She held his gaze for a moment. "How they knew isn’t important."
"It is to me," he said. "Either we make the stops, or I'll walk from here." He touched the buckle of the harness.
"You’re seriously not thinking about jumping, are you?"
"Go north, I stay in this seat. Make any other decision, I’m bugging out."
"You’re fucking crazy."
"No. I’ve just been burned one too many times."
"Fine." She yanked the wheel and as soon as they were pointed north and punched the accelerator. She glanced up through the canopy at a break in the trees. The sound of the chopper engine had faded, but it wasn’t gone. She wouldn’t breathe easier until it was.
Gideon continued to keep his gaze locked on the sky, glancing over both his shoulders.
She understood what it was like to lose almost everything. Finch had used her team to test his human weapons. He’d betrayed his country. He’d killed innocent people and destroyed careers.
And for what?
Power? Money? Did it even matter the why?
If Gideon needed to find one small piece of this puzzle, she’d try to help him—as long as that damn chopper stayed off their tail.
So far, so good.
"What’s your name?" Gideon asked.
"Zadie."
"Nice Hebrew name. I think it means princess, or lady, or something."
"It’s also Yiddish and means grandfather." She chuckled. "And I was named after my Papa."
"Gideon was my father’s middle name and his father’s first name." Gideon glanced in her direction. "It’s also Hebrew. Looks like we have a few things in common." He pointed to his right. "You’re going to have to cross the access road. The diner is just over there. We can park this in the woods and go on foot."
She slowed as she approached the road, doing a quick scan of the area. Going to the diner wasn’t necessarily the smartest decision. However, gathering intel on the men she’d killed, and those following her and Gideon, wasn’t a stupid one.
The access road was nothing but gravel. No sign of the helicopter anywhere, and they hadn’t seen anyone on foot or in a vehicle since they’d taken off. Didn’t mean they weren’t out there.
Zadie crossed fast, keeping the SxS tight to the tree line on the other side before cutting toward the back of the diner sitting on the side of a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere about three miles outside of a small town that probably had less than a population of two-hundred.
She knew that kind of town all too well. Her childhood had unfolded in a comparable setting, where she had a computer, a gaming system, and a father whose efforts vastly exceeded his income.
She placed the SxS between a rusted dumpster and a stack of pallets that appeared untouched since the place opened and turned off the engine.
