The Interceptors sped past them, and Devin turned to watch them through the cargo compartment windshield. The two police vehicles stopped at the edge of the expanding street-wide cloud and immediately backed up, their white reverse lights already hazy from the smoke. The two sedans carrying other members of Rich’s team peeled left at the intersection they’d just crossed, headed north on South Ellwood Avenue. The Interceptors stopped backing up about halfway to the intersection, but none of the officers got out. A lone police car swerved into the intersection from the north, where Rich’s associates had just turned, and parked next to the SUVs. It appeared that the police hadn’t taken notice of them. Yet.

“Looks like we’re clear for now,” said Devin.

Rich glanced between the seats. “Clear is a relative term at the moment. This changes things.”

“Changes everything,” said Berg.

“Definitely changes our escape and evasion plan. I think we’ll head to BWI and abandon these in long-term parking. Pick up some rentals in the terminal. I’ll have Gupta make the arrangements through a business account,” said Rich. “We have to assume all four of the vehicles involved with the town house have been made. This one and the three sedans.”

“Scrap the airport rental car idea,” said Devin. “They’ll have people watching the rental agencies inside and outside of the terminal. That’s what I would do. We need to find a twenty-four-hour parking garage just north of DC, near a Metro station. A number of the parking garages offer monthly parking, payable on the spot. Silver Spring has a few. Ride the Metro for a little while, then grab a taxi back to the general vicinity of my mother’s apartment. Cash only. Nobody will find the vehicles.”

“Devin’s right. We can rendezvous with the Suburban along the way and transfer all of our weapons and gear,” said Rich.

“We need to be careful with the Suburban,” said Berg. “They must have had someone watching the front of the town house and possibly the back. The timing of this attack suggests they knew when to start looking for vehicles leaving the area.”

“I’ll tell Graves and Gupta to be careful and take their time. It’s going to be a long night,” said Rich.

“There’s no way they could have known the town house address before we set up our surveillance,” hissed Scott. “We should have detected them.”

“Not if they started off assuming the whole thing was a setup,” said Devin. “They would have kept their distance and used text messages to communicate. They probably had four teams out there like the one that hit us. Each team spread out to cover the most likely routes away from the town house in each direction.”

“Who the hell are we dealing with?” asked Marnie. “That’s a lot of personnel to throw at a problem on US soil. Russians or not.”