Cait got out of her car and strode back to inspect the damage. The bumper was a crumpled mess. She stepped out of the glare of headlights from the offending Cadillac SUV and shielded her eyes. In the reflected light, she saw the driver’s blue eyes and white hair. And sitting in the passenger seat was a man with identical features.
She dashed back to her car and went to open the door. The SUV driver snapped the transmission into gear and hit the gas pedal. The door handle was ripped from her hand as the impact propelled the Honda forward several yards. The SUV’s doors opened. The identical twins stepped out and walked toward her.
There was only one thing she could do.
Run.
She kicked off her low-heeled leather work shoes and sprinted along the street. Two pairs of rapid footsteps pounded the pavement behind her. Cait was in good shape — she ran five miles every day — and she slowly outdistanced her pursuers. The footsteps faded. A moment later she heard car doors slam shut and the squeal of tires from the accelerating vehicle as it took off after her.
The SUV would catch up within seconds. She ran down a dark street. The SUV followed. She could feel the headlights burning into her back. Cait changed course like a jack-rabbit being chased by a coyote and ran across the manicured front lawn of a ranch style house. The SUV drove onto the lawn. She ran around behind the house to the back yard and skirted a swimming pool. The Cadillac followed and almost drove into the pool before the driver hit the brakes and threw the SUV into reverse.
She crossed into another yard and then onto a parallel street. The SUV’s engine growled in the distance, and she heard the screech of its protesting tires as it navigated a tight corner. Cait ran up to a house, punched the doorbell, and plastered herself against the wall.
The SUV sped past, braked, backed up, stopped, and accelerated. The commotion had attracted attention. Lights were starting to come on in the row houses along the street and figures could be seen in the windows. The vehicle kept moving until the sound of its engine faded.
Cait fumbled her cell phone out of her jacket and called the number the campus police officer had given her earlier that day. A sleepy female voice answered at the other end of the line.
“Douglas. Who’s calling?”
“It’s Dr. Everson. I talked to you this morning.”
“I remember, Dr. Everson.” The voice was more alert. “What’s going on?”
Cait breathlessly relayed what had just happened.
“Two men are after me. The ones I told you about.”
“Can you help me?”
“That’s out of our jurisdiction,” the officer said. “I’ll call the Metro police and they’ll get in touch with the Arlington cops. Where should they meet you?”
Cait told the officer she would wait in an all-night coffee shop nearby.
An Arlington police cruiser pulled up in front of the coffee shop ten minutes later and drove her back to her car. She was relieved to see her lap-top case still on the front seat. She told the police what had happened. They drove her to her condo and at the request of the university police, a cruiser was stationed in front.
She locked her door and mixed herself a stiff Cosmopolitan. Her hands shook, but a few sips of the drink calmed her down. Those men were the same ones who had been following her for days. Why? And who were they?
The matter had been preying on her mind. Earlier that day, a student had to repeat her name a second time to get her attention.
Cait had snapped out of the trance she’d slipped into as she’d been teaching her favorite class, an introductory course on overland and maritime silk routes. Cait hid her embarrassment with a smile. An associate professor with a doctorate degree in Central Asian history was not supposed to daydream on the job.
“Sorry. I must have zoned out. Could you repeat your question?”
The female student lowered her upraised hand. “I asked about the Tarim mummies.”
“Yes. Fascinating stuff. The mummies were non-Mongoloid, apparently Caucasoid, found more than a hundred miles east of Yingpan, China. They’ve been dated back to 1600 B.C. Long before Alexander the Great really opened up the Silk Road. No one knows where they came from.”
The student had a follow-up. “Do you think the presence of a Caucasoid in China in any way vindicates the theory that east-west contacts go back much earlier than historians are willing to admit?”
“It’s an intriguing theory, but not conclusive without additional evidence. I will say that the mummies are indicative of the fact that globalization is hardly a new concept. Any more questions?”
More hands shot into the air. The class was made up of enthusiastic students in fields that included diplomacy, economics, journalism, politics and the arts. Cait had earned a reputation for bringing a contemporary global perspective to ancient events. The discussion continued until the class ended. She shooed the students from the room, gathered her papers and left the history department building, heading south through the sprawling campus until she came to Village C, the six-story brick building that housed the Georgetown University Department of Public Safety.
She took a deep breath and strode toward the entrance with purpose in her step, thinking that the worst that could happen would be that the police would think she was crazy.
Her instincts proved correct a few minutes later as she sat at a table in Room 116 across from a uniformed campus police officer who said her name was Douglas. The officer had asked what the problem was. Cait had flippantly replied that she felt as if she were in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Officer Douglas didn’t laugh. She raised an eyebrow and read from a questionnaire.
“Have you seen a suspicious individual in your neighborhood entering an apartment, room or home?”
“Describe suspicious individual,” Cait said.
“Individuals who like to seem to be lurking,” the officer said, after some thought.
“Oh,” Cait said. “Well then. No lurkers.”
“Have you ever seen a suspicious individual entering an office without apparent purpose, or loitering in a parking lot or trying to force open a car door?”
“No, no, and no.”
“Or possessing two bikes or bike parts?”
Cait emitted a strange sound that combined a laugh and a cry of disbelief.
“This is not about bicycles,” she said with an edge to her voice.
The officer folded her hands in front of her. “What is it about, Professor Everson?”
“As I just explained, I think someone has been following me.”
“Someone you can’t identify.”
“Correct. As I said, I’ll be in a public place and I’ll look up and see a man staring at me. When I stare back he averts his eyes. Or goes back to reading his newspaper. I know this sounds insane, but one minute he is there. The next he’s not.”
“He disappears into thin air?”
Cait frowned. “Please don’t go there, Officer Douglas. Of course he doesn’t vanish. He simply gets up and leaves when my attention is diverted.”
“Would you go over that description again?”
The officer was looking for discrepancies in her story. It was a classic case of Town and Gown, the tension that often existed between local worker bees and the academics in their ivory towers. She described the man again.
“He has platinum white hair, cut short, but I think it’s premature, because his face is younger. Almost boyish. High cheekbones and intense blue eyes. Mouth always seems to be in a half smile.”
“Those are pretty good observations.”
“I’m a scientist, trained to observe.” She paused. “There’s something else. Sometimes there are two of them. Twins, apparently.”