“Miss Goldman, this is Special Agent Gorton. Listen to me. This is important. Stan Miller sent us over to move you to our protected safe house. We’re just pulling into the hotel garage. Please have everything packed so we can move quickly and get you to a safe place.”

She shook her head from side to side and fought the urge to cry. This couldn’t be happening! It sounded like something she had seen in some cheap movie. The heroine kidnapped from the fancy hotel by imposter FBI agents. She clenched her fists and made up her mind. Now, more than ever, she had to stay alert, do the right thing. Otherwise, she might not live to tell anyone else about the dirty trading system.

She bent over the laptop and tapped out a reply to Dmitri Ustinov’s e-mail.

Need help. Meet me at Andy’s Bar on Washington. Hurry.

She pushed SEND before she changed her mind, made certain to delete both messages from the e-mail server, jammed the laptop into its carrying case, then turned and dashed out into the hallway. The elevator door was sliding open as she rounded the corner. She couldn’t afford to take a chance. She ducked into the stairwell, just catching a glimpse of three large, dark-suited men as they emerged from the lift and headed down the hall in the direction of her room.

She was faced with a decision. Something in the far recesses of her mind, some plot from a long-forgotten spy novel or television show, bubbled up into her subconscious. It told her to run up the stairs, not down. She charged up the staircase to the next floor landing, then tried to get as close to the cinder block wall as she could.

The door on the floor below her burst open and she heard the clatter of someone running down the stairs. Only then did she move, exiting the stairwell into the hallway, the door sighing shut behind her. She headed straight for the elevator, her breath already coming in great rasping gasps, as much from fear as exertion. She looked both ways, up and down the long hallway, then reached for the DOWN button.

She stopped. They might halt the elevator on her old floor when they saw it coming down. Or have someone watching the elevators on the lobby and garage levels, assuming she would be naive enough to use one of those ways out. She’d be trapped inside that little cage.

Instead, Goldman turned and ran down the long hall toward a stairway sign she could barely make out at the far end. A door swung open near the end of the corridor and she pulled up short. There was nowhere to duck out of sight. They would have her dead to rights before she could back down the length of the hall.

It was a maid, pushing a large laundry bin.