Sweat streaked his forehead.

A bump sent a jolt of pain through the swelling gashes on his face. He was as furious about the damage to his handsome features as he was about anything else that the bastard driving the car had done to him. But he was even more furious because Marta’s carelessness had gotten him into this mess.

Your sister’s waiting for you, the man had said.

And she’ll be sorry, he vowed.

• • •

IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT SIMON blended with the rush of vehicles on the Beltway. Back at the safe house, the FBI agent had said that he wasn’t due to be relieved until nine tonight. So the police had no idea what happened and wouldn’t be looking for the car.

In theory.

He tried to figure the best way to arrange the exchange and get Liz back. As he visualized vantage points around the Lincoln Memorial, he heard the ping of a text message coming through. He snatched up his phone from the seat next to him.

What he saw made him inhale sharply.

ESCAPED. OFF H55 N.

From a sender named Rudy Voya.

Who the hell is that? And where’s the rest of the message? The name’s Russian. Did Liz really escape, or was Marta playing with him? Trying to draw him and her brother away from Washington?

Knowing that H55 was the scenic highway west of Washington, he made an abrupt decision and took the first exit that allowed him to speed in that direction.

• • •

LIZ CONTINUED ALONG THE SOFT bank of the stream.

The trickle of the water hid the few sounds she made, but it also hid any sounds from Max. With trembling fingers, she typed the rest of her message to Simon.

NE OF MARSDON. A LODGE.

The moment she sent it, she tightened her grip on the knife and struggled to get control of herself. So far, she’d merely been fleeing. But she remembered what her CIA instructors had taught her during training exercises at the Farm.

If you’re on the run—in the city, in the countryside, it doesn’t matter—if you don’t have a plan, if you’re just reacting, you’re going to lose.

Following the stream had the merit of giving her a course, but when she looked again at the map feature on her phone, she found an overhead photograph of the area. The stream meandered, sometimes curving back to the middle of the forest, where Max was surely searching for her. But if she veered from the stream with no landmarks to guide her, only the phone’s GPS would keep her from wandering in the mist—and not for long. The battery-charge indicator was at twenty percent.

Soon the phone would be dead.

How long until the sun went down? Could she hope to find her way out of here by then, or would she be forced to hide in the dark?

The lodge.

Earlier, without cell-phone reception, she’d thought about heading back there until she came within Wi-Fi range and could contact Simon. But now that she’d been able to send a text, her only thought had been to put as much distance as she could between her and Max. It was counterintuitive for her to go back to the lodge. Max would never expect it. She thought about the weapons there and the communications equipment. She could lock the doors and send for help. The place looked like it had the strength of a bunker. Max and whoever came to help him wouldn’t be able to break in before the police arrived.