She told him.
'I'll leave a minute after you. I'll take a taxi, and if I'm not followed, I'll have the driver go past your place. By then, your own taxi should have brought you home. Leave a light on behind an open window in front. If I see that a window's open, I'll know you're okay.'
'Taxi? I brought my car.'
'Then you'll get home faster. The elevator's opening. Now.'
She touched his cheek. '. Be careful.'
Buchanan felt the impression of her fingers for quite a while after she was gone.
12
'Buchanan!'
It must have been the result of fatigue.
'Buchanan!'
Or else it resulted from his conversation with Holly. Although he'd come to Washington thinking of himself as Peter Lang impersonating Charles Duffy and Mike Hamilton, he'd been distracted into talking to Holly as the core identity he'd been trying to avoid.
'Buchanan!'
So when he heard a man call his name as he walked along the rain-misted street away from the hotel, Buchanan almost turned reflexively to see who wanted him.
It was a mistake, he instantly realized, and he caught himself before he fully turned, but he did twist his head partially, and that was all the indication his hunter needed.
'Yeah, you! Buchanan!'
Buchanan kept walking, not changing his pace, not appearing to feel pressured, although he did feel pressured. A lot. Nerves quickening, he heard rapid footsteps behind him on the wet sidewalk. One person, it sounded like, but Buchanan didn't dare look to see if he was right.
The time was nearly ten-thirty. Traffic was sparse, sporadic headlights gleaming through the beads of moisture in the gloomy air. Buchanan had glanced casually from side to side when he'd left the hotel, a natural thing to do, one that allowed him to check for any sign that Holly had been detained or that anyone was outside watching him. Seeing no problem, he had turned off Massachusetts Avenue, heading south on 21st Street.
Now, heart pounding, he realized that 21st was a one-way street and that the traffic was headed in a southern direction just as he was which meant that all the cars approached from behind him. Unless he looked over his shoulder, he had no way to tell if a vehicle would be veering toward him. But if he did look, he would reinforce his pursuer's suspicion. Plural. Other urgent footsteps had joined the first.
'God damn it, Buchanan!' a different voice yelled.
The voice was directly behind him, close enough to attack.
With no other viable option, Buchanan whirled, seeing a well-built, short-haired man in his mid-twenties lurch to a sudden, defensive stop.
But not quickly enough. Buchanan struck the man's chest with the palm of his right hand. The blow was hard but controlled, calculated to knock the man off balance but not to break his ribs.
The man was jolted backward. He exhaled forcefully, a practiced reaction that helped him absorb the impact. That reaction and the resistance the man's solid chest provided told Buchanan that this wasn't a civilian. The man was military: trim hips, broad shoulders for upper-body strength. While the man briefly lost his balance, Buchanan swung his right leg hard, twisting it so that his shin bone struck along the outside of the man's left thigh. A major, sensitive nerve ran down each leg in that area. If the nerve were traumatized, the victim suffered not only intense pain but temporary paralysis in the leg.
As Buchanan anticipated, before the man could retaliate from the blow to his chest, he grunted, grasped his leg, and toppled sharply. That left a second man rushing toward Buchanan, cursing, reaching beneath his windbreaker. Buchanan threw his travel bag toward him, forcing the man to zigzag while raising a hand to deflect the bag. Before the man could recover from this distraction and draw the handgun he was reaching for, Buchanan came in close, rammed the palm of his hand sharply against the bottom of the man's nose, and felt cartilage snap. The man's vision would blur. The pain would be intense. That gave Buchanan enough time to jab an elbow into the man's solar plexus and yank the man's pistol away as he doubled over.
Immediately Buchanan whirled, grabbed the first man struggling to stand, and walloped him against a lamp post. The man's head made a whunking sound. Then Buchanan whirled yet again, back to the second man, who lay sprawled on the sidewalk, fighting to breathe through his broken nose, spewing blood.
If this had been combat, Buchanan would have killed them. As it was, he didn't want to make the incident even more serious than it was. If he eliminated the colonel's men, the next time their orders would be to do the same to him instead of to detain him. Or perhaps these men had been ordered to kill him. Otherwise, why would the second man have been drawing a weapon?
From where Buchanan had come, at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 21st Street, a well-dressed, elderly man and woman gaped in Buchanan's direction. The woman pointed a trembling arm, her outcry shrill.
Buchanan grabbed his travel bag and ran. His reaction wasn't caused only by fear that a police car would soon arrive. What sent adrenaline surging through him in even greater quantity, with greater urgency, were the two men who'd scurried around the corner in response to the woman's cry. Seeing Buchanan, they charged, and their chests were as muscled, their shoulders as broad as the men on the sidewalk.
Buchanan ran harder, the stitches in his knife wound threatening to tear open. He didn't care. He had to keep straining. Because when the second two men had seen him and raced toward him, both had reached beneath windbreakers, pulling out handguns, and there was no question now. This wasn't just a surveillance team. It was a hit team.
What had they done to Holly?
But he couldn't let himself think about that. He had to concentrate on staying alive. The first priority was to get off this damned one-way street, where the direction of traffic left him vulnerable from behind. Approaching P Street, he risked wasting time to look behind him on his left, saw an opening between two approaching cars, and darted between them, hoping that the cars would shield him, having noticed that the men were raising their weapons. A horn blared. Brakes squealed. He scrambled onto the opposite sidewalk and skidded on a slippery puddle but kept his balance, then bolted around the corner as the cars stopped shielding him and two gunshots roared, bullets shattering a window across from him.
Tightening his grip on the pistol he'd taken from the man whose nose he'd broken, Buchanan raced in a greater frenzy. The misty rain seemed thicker, the night darker. There wasn't any traffic. The rain discouraged pedestrians. Ahead, opposite, on the right, a murky street light revealed a lane that headed south, bisecting the block between 21st and 20th. Buchanan lunged toward it, his travel bag slowing his momentum, but he couldn't ditch the bag. He couldn't give up the books and files that were in it.
Behind him, he heard curses, strident breathing, rapid footsteps. The sign for the lane said Hopkins. Sprinting from P Street onto it, he flinched as bullets struck the corner he passed. At once, he whirled, crouched, and aimed one-handed with his elbow propped on his bent knee, controlling his trembling arm. Sweat merged with beads of mist on his brow. Leaning out from the corner, he wasn't able to see clearly enough to line up the front and rear sights of the pistol. But if he couldn't, his pursuers couldn't aim clearly, either. Judging as best as he could, he squeezed the trigger rapidly, firing three times, the shots echoing in the narrow street, assaulting his eardrums.