She shrugged to herself, turned, and moved quickly and quietly across the slate roof. It was angled slightly downward. In a moment, she reached the corner. She got down on her knees and felt underneath. The rain gutter was there, just as Rita said it would be.

Elizabeth looked across lawn, and there, maybe a hundred yards away, a black car was parked in the turnaround, its headlights on, waiting. At night, there was a second Secret Service man stationed at the front door of the dormitory, and she knew that every thirty minutes or so he would take a walk around the building.

Let’s hope that walk doesn’t happen now.

She slipped the backpack over her shoulders. Now here came the tricky part. She reached both hands under the roof, then swung her entire body over. Her legs followed her torso and hit the stucco wall hard, scraping her knee.

That hurt, but she held on—the remnants of her gymnastics training as a young girl were still with her. Now she shimmied down, holding the pipe with her hands, her feet walking down the wall. It was easy.

Near the ground, she dropped and rolled backward onto her butt on the wet grass. She lay there for a moment, breathing deeply.

Holy moly! She had just done that. That was some James Bond stuff.

Then it occurred to her that Rita had already done the same thing at least twice. Okay. She jumped up, turned, and ran across the lawn to the waiting car.

It seemed to take forever to reach it.

The rear door popped open as she approached. She practically dove inside.

Rita was there, inside the luxurious black car. She smiled. There was a piece of paper on her lap.

DON’T TALK ABOUT IT

Elizabeth nodded, pulled the door shut, and smiled. Now they were inside the car and behind smoked glass. No one could see them in here.

“You ready?” Rita said.

Elizabeth was out of breath, but tried to speak calmly. “Finally.”

The car rolled slowly across campus. Elizabeth looked at the driver behind the glass partition. He was piloting the car with extreme caution—he probably didn’t want to run over the child of a Russian gangster. He was a blond-haired guy, middle-aged, and didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in either Elizabeth or Rita.

They approached the gate and the guardhouse. Elizabeth held her breath.

The guard on duty barely glanced at them. He was inside the lighted guardhouse, doing something with paperwork. He looked up and raised a hand. The wrought iron gate slid open.

They were out!

As they pulled away from the campus, Rita squeezed Elizabeth’s hand.

The driver opened his window a crack and lit a cigarette.

“Next stop, Geneva,” he said over the car’s intercom.

Rita looked at Elizabeth.

“This is going to be a fun night,” she said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN