They walked together in the station, just as they had ten minutes earlier before boarding the train at Metro Center. Court leaned in to Max’s ear and said, “Go up the escalator to the mezzanine, then head to the escalator for the opposite platform. Take the train back to your office. We’re done here.” Max nodded without looking back, and Court leaned close one more time. “How ’bout that? You aren’t dead. You’re going to have to tell your friends on CNN that I’m not the monster they’re making me out to be.” Court immediately began lagging back a few feet. His plan was to separate from Ohlhauser here in the bowels of the crowded station and get up to street level, where he knew he could quickly melt into the busy neighborhood.

The crowd thickened on the mezzanine level at the top of the escalator, and Court drifted even farther back. He slipped off his raincoat, revealing his new black suit, and then he pulled off his suit coat and walked on in his shirtsleeves. He wadded the coats up into a tight ball as he exited the turnstiles to leave the station, and he crammed them both in a garbage can at the bottom of the five-story-high escalator that led up to Connecticut Avenue.

But as soon as he got on the escalator he saw them. Two D.C. Metro cops heading down the opposite escalator. They were checking faces, clearly looking for someone.

Court looked ahead and above him now. He could just barely make out the pale blue uniforms of two more cops at the top of the escalator, four stories up.

He turned quickly and began heading back down the escalator, pushing to the right of others on the stairs in hopes of covering his retreat. As soon as he got to the bottom of the stairs he hurried back along the mezzanine, planning on getting down one of the escalators to the platform level. From here he could jump on the first ride out of here in either direction.

He went back through the turnstile and walked a few feet, but there Max Ohlhauser appeared out of the crowd in front of him, along with four D.C. Metro police officers. The faces of the policemen did not register with Court at first. He just saw Max, the uniforms, and he started to turn away, hoping the fact he’d shed his jacket and his coat might disguise him to Ohlhauser.

But that had been too much to hope for.

“There! That’s him!”

All four cops reached for their weapons, right in the middle of the crowded mezzanine of a subway station.